


Ghost of a Chance

by XiuChen4Ever



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Background Murder Mystery, Banter, Cat/Human Hybrids, Catboys & Catgirls, Dead Characters, Foreground Unrequested Housemate(s), Fox/Human Hybrids, Foxboys & Foxgirls, Ghosts, Hate to Love, Hybrids, Jongdae Sees Dead People, M/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XiuChen4Ever/pseuds/XiuChen4Ever
Summary: Jongdae just wants to live a normal life, not get dragged into afterlife drama.  Too bad that’s looking pretty damn unlikely…
Relationships: Huang Zi Tao | Z.Tao/Oh Sehun, Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Comments: 32
Kudos: 157
Collections: EXO MONSTERFEST 2020





	Ghost of a Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Monsterfest 2020, prompt O236.
> 
> Dear Prompter: I deviated a bit from your lovely prompt in that the murder mystery part got shoved to the background in favor of Jongdae bickering with ghosts and attractive law enforcement personnel. 😅 So while this surely isn't any sort of gripping thriller, I think it turned out to be rather fun anyway. I hope you still enjoy!

ʎ\෴/λ

The most annoying thing about pretending to be something he’s not is that Jongdae is never truly able to just be  _ himself. _ Sure, living life in disguise is his own choice, but it’s supposed to be protecting his freedom. As he stares at the delicious-looking fish in the butcher’s case at his local market, he doesn’t exactly feel all that free.

“A pound of the chicken, please,” Jongdae says, swallowing a sigh. Chicken is good, too. He likes chicken.

“And a pound of the fresh salmon filets, too,” a husky tenor says from his right. “No time like the present to treat yourself.”

Jongdae looks over into too-knowing deep amber eyes, vertical pupils narrowed to slivers above a smirk. Alarm rushes down Jongdae’s spine like an avalanche as that smirk widens into a grin.

_ Don’t puff your tail. Just set your basket down and scram—  _

The guy grabs Jongdae’s forearm, a casual motion with a shackling result. Jongdae’s brows knit together as he gazes down at the hand holding him back, small but surprisingly strong, with dark, thick nails pressing dull tips into the sleeve of his hoodie.

“After all… one never knows when a meal might be their last. May as well properly enjoy it.”

With a sigh, Jongdae scowls at the guy holding him hostage. “What do you want from me?”

The guy laughs, pointed ears folding back into his russet hair. “The same thing everyone wants, I imagine—why else would a pretty little kitty be trying so hard to impersonate a pretty little vixen?”

Jongdae tries to pull his arm free, but the fox hybrid holding on to him maintains his bruising grip. “Then I’ll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else: you can fuck right off. First of all, I’m a dude—a tod, not a  _ vixen. _ Second of all, without a DNA test or something, you can’t prove I’m not one of your own.”

“I don’t need a DNA test—your cologne is good, I’ll give you that, but I could tell at first glance exactly what you are.”

“I’m a fox,” Jongdae insists. 

He looks and smells no different from the hybrid in front of him. He’s trimmed the tufts from the tops of his bold red ears. He’s dipped the end of his fluffy red tail in peroxide to enhance the paler tip. He’s thanked nature every day for the natural amber color of his eyes, even if he curses nature every day for what those eyes enable him to see.

“You are not.” The fox hybrid leans in close enough that his natural vulpine spice is finally distinguishable from Jongdae’s own manufactured musk. “I’m sure you fool every human, because they see what they expect to see. Fluffy red tail, pointy red ears, must be a fox. And you probably fool most other hybrids, because they rely on their noses, and as I said, your cologne is worth every bit of the fortune you must spend on it.”

The fox hybrid’s grin reveals gleaming white canines a bit thicker and duller than Jongdae’s own. “I bet you’re careful not to smile too wide in public, aren’t you? Moved to the chill of the mountains to have an excuse to wear gloves year-round. How hard was it to learn to keep your tail still instead of twitching the tip all the time? Do you wag it when you’re happy?”

“You’re far from finding out what I do when I’m happy,” Jongdae snarls. “Let go of me before I call for security.”

“Ah, but I  _ am _ security,” the fox hybrid says, flipping a police detective’s badge out of his jacket pocket with his free hand to flash briefly in Jongdae’s face. “And while I’m sure it gets annoying to be constantly pestered to help entitled humans talk to dear old Granny one more time—nevermind that once they’ve crossed, they’re certainly not coming back to soothe the guilt of whoever neglected them in life—I’m sure an upstanding citizen such as yourself will be only too happy to serve the entire population.”

“I did my military service already.” Jongdae steps back, pulling harder, suppressing the urge to ruin his gloves and scratch this asshole’s eyes out.

“And the nation is surely grateful. But all of Asia mourns, and everyone will be more grateful to know that whoever killed Huang Zitao is caught and properly punished.”

“I’m just an electrician—I can’t help you with that.”

“Oh, I think you’re far more than that. And I think you’re going to help us.”

“Why the fuck would I help some handsy  _ dick?” _

The fox detective laughs. “Ah, such clever wordplay—I love that sort of thing. And so will Chief Investigator Kim—nobody else on the squad appreciates our humor.”

His handsome face smoothes back into that hyperconfident smirk. “You may have everyone else fooled. People see what they expect to see, but they also hear what they want to hear. Would it matter if you really  _ were _ a fox, I wonder, if the local paper ran an article about the quiet feline electrician who refuses payment to try to contact the spirits of those who’ve passed beyond?”

Jongdae gapes. “Are you threatening me?”

“Would you rather be arrested? Held without bail until a judge compels you to cooperate?”

“I’d rather be left the fuck alone.”

“And yet I came all this way to find you,” the detective says, accepting the wrapped packages of meat from the butcher and putting them in Jongdae’s basket. 

The human butcher, a coward who is only proving the fox’s point about people perceiving what they’re willing to, smiles and wishes them a nice day like they’re not engaged in heated repartee right in front of his counter. He continues to be useless as the detective all but hauls Jongdae toward the checkout.

“Don’t make me cuff our wrists together. Don’t make me chase you down. Just be a good kitty and come along quietly—I’ll even have the department pay for your stinking fish.”

“I hate you.” A hiss colors the words, something Jongdae would normally repress like his life depended on it. “How the fuck did you find me, anyway?”

“Ah, now that’s an interesting little tale. We issued a request for cat hybrids to come forward and help us out, but the Not Your Toy movement was perhaps a little  _ too _ successful. Cats young enough to still have the Sight have become exceedingly rare.”

At the moment, Jongdae’s rather wishing his own parents had been participants in the whole “catboys and catgirls aren’t fucktoys for humans and we refuse to be bred as such” campaigns that stirred public sentiment three decades ago. They’d inspired a majority of the cat hybrid population to remove their genes from the breeding pool, either via birth control or zygote screening, to avoid exploitation of future feline generations. 

But Jongdae’s Maine Coon dad had taken the chance and bred naturally with Jongdae’s Chihuahua mom, ending up with a fluffy orange kitten doomed to inherit his mother’s stature along with his father’s supernatural vision. They’d tried to teach young Jongdae to embrace his true nature, but as soon as he’d seen a fox hybrid, he’d declared himself one of their number with the vehemence of a six-year-old invited to cemeteries by strangers at least a dozen times a week.

His parents had reluctantly agreed to help him present himself as such in public, informing curious strangers that he’d been conceived via IVF with donor gametes. And Jongdae has maintained the illusion ever since, indulging his feline self only behind the most secure of closed doors.

“I’m impressed that you managed to deceive even your college roommate, who lived with you for four years and never suspected a thing. But then he started dating an  _ actual _ fox hybrid, and noticed a key difference.”

“Chanyeol never saw me hard,” Jongdae protests.

“Not your dick, you horny tomcat—your ears.” The fox detective swivels his own ears to point behind himself. “Red foxes all have black on the backs of our ears. From the front, you’d absolutely fool the casual observer. But one flick of the ear, and anyone truly familiar with foxes would know you’re a fraud.”

Jongdae scowls at the bag of purchased fish the detective is holding out to him. Damn Chanyeol and his slow but accurate observation skills. He should have roomed with a human and ignored hybrid solidarity.

“The fur dye irritates my skin,” he confesses.

“Aww, kitties are so sensitive in more ways than one,” the detective coos. He waggles the bag of fish enticingly. “Come on—let me take you to headquarters. There’s a kitchen and everything, and I’ll have my colleague cook this up any way you like. Detective Do really should have been a chef.”

Jongdae considers his options. Evading a canine who knows what he smells like, even if he rips off his gloves and takes to the trees, is a long shot, considering that the detective would just call in the fire department and use his official credentials and handsome face to get them to haul him right back down, kicking and hissing. So he sighs, wishing he’d been born anything else, even a human, even a fucking  _ squirrel. _

“Fine,” he huffs, accepting the bag of fish. “But show me that badge again. I’m not getting abducted by some fucking impostor and used for nefarious purposes.”

The detective smiles, reaching back into his pocket and handing over the requested identification.

“Detective Kim Minseok at your service,” he says with a sweeping bow. “And on behalf of the department, I promise you’ll only be used for entirely honorable purposes.”

“Whatever,” Jongdae grumbles, chucking the badge back at Detective Kim’s head. “I’m still being  _ used _ either way.”

Detective Kim effortlessly intercepts the missile. “That is the way of things,” he sings, ushering Jongdae to an unmarked car. “We are all merely pawns in the game of life, and the best we can hope for is promotion.”

“You’d promote from a pawn to a penis,” Jongdae mutters as he crawls into the back seat with his bribery fish. “Keep on pulling dick moves.”

The fox’s raucous laughter makes Jongdae feel no better.

ʎ\෴/λ

“Holy fuck, you found him.”

Jongdae reflexively glares at the speaker, aware that Detective Kim is beaming at his back. This duality of expressions evidently strikes a funny chord, because the speaker—a rabbit hybrid—doubles over so far to laugh that his fancy cop hat falls off onto the floor.

“Officer Lu Han, this is Kim Jongdae, who has graciously agreed to assist us in this case.”

_ Graciously agreed _ isn’t precisely the way Jongdae would put it, but he’s hardly going to argue. In fact, he’s not really in the mood to speak at all, just bowing to meet the minimum level of politeness as he’s introduced to Detective Do Kyungsoo, a quiet, round-eyed human who takes Jongdae’s bag of fish and promises to feed him well; and Chief Investigator Kim Junmyeon, another human who cackles until he’s wheezing at Detective Kim’s relaying of Jongdae’s insulting puns.

Detective Kim shows him around the small but well-equipped department, including the kitchen, where Detective Do is busy making the air smell delicious; the lounge, where a large TV is playing pop music videos; and the nap room, which has a pair of neatly-made beds and excellent soundproofing.

With no reason to keep up appearances, Jongdae indulges in a swish of his fluffy red tail.

“Uh, yeah, the drive to Seoul was long and exhausting and you howled the whole damn time, so. I’m taking a nap in here. Alone. Wake me up when the fish is ready.”

Jongdae is more than a little surprised when Detective Kim just blinks and allows himself to be easily pushed from the room. The expression on the fox’s face definitely was just startlement, so Jongdae ignores it, dropping into the nearest bed. He wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough to sleep in the car with a stranger, even if Detective Kim hadn’t sung along to every song on some upbeat pop/rock playlist. The guy’s voice wasn’t unpleasant, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Jongdae will nap in this nice, clean, secure room. He will wake up in a bit, and eat some delicious fish. And then he will sit on the nicest couch in the lounge and groom himself properly, and hiss violently at anyone who says anything about it.

If these pushy cops want a damn cat, a cat is what they’ll fucking get.

ʎ\෴/λ

He feels much better after his nap, even if his phone says it’s barely been twenty minutes. He doesn’t even hiss at Detective Kim for waking him up. He doesn’t say much to the fox, but he makes sure to profusely thank and even smile at Detective Do for cooking the fish so nicely for him. It’s flaky and buttery and delicious, and someone must have clued the good human in on the fact that cats aren’t fans of citrus, because there are no disgusting lemon wedges to be seen.

So he doesn’t begrudge the man for serving a portion of the fish to himself and the other human—despite his low sense of humor, Chief Investigator Kim is very polite and respectful, thanking Jongdae for helping them upon request instead of wasting time by making them get an official summons. Jongdae understands that it’s not really CI Kim himself that’s strong-arming Jongdae into helping. Sure, it’s this particular Violent Crimes unit that put out the request for feline aid, but it’s really Seoul’s Chief of Police that would issue the order for Jongdae to be detained if he didn’t cooperate. The murder of a foreign national in their city—a famous foreign national, and much beloved by the public at that—is making them look really bad, and they’re of course under pressure to apprehend Huang Zitao’s killer as soon as possible. The rabbit is a vegetarian, of course, which saves Jongdae from having to decide how he feels about sharing food with the guy.

But it’s lucky for Detective Kim that he elects to eat some of the chicken that had been in the bag with the fish, because Jongdae would have definitely been hissy about the fox sharing in his bounty, even if he’d been the one to suggest and pay for it in the first place. It had really been the department that had paid, anyway, and the fish would have been wasted on such an uncouth palate as the fox’s. Part of Jongdae knows that Detective Kim is even more blameless in all of this than CI Kim, but Jongdae hates the detective anyway. For recognizing him for what he truly is. For bruising his arm with those damn fox nails that Jongdae has never found a way to convincingly mimic over his own retractable claws. For laughing at him, even if Jongdae had made smart remarks worthy of laughter. For hitting the high note in the girl-group hit that’s Jongdae’s favorite shower song, in the face of his own inconsistent ability to hit the soprano note with his not-incapable falsetto. For being so damn handsome, and for smirking at Jongdae all the damn time.

And especially for being born an actual fox hybrid, known for cleverness and mischief rather than fuckability and seeing ghosts. Why does this Kim Minseok get all the luck? It’s not fair, and Jongdae’s not going to just lie back and take such injustice.

The fox tries to draw Jongdae into more banter, but Jongdae refuses to rise to the bait and let the fox mock him in front of all these others. So Detective Kim starts chatting with Officer Lu instead, fox and rabbit laughing and teasing in the way of close friends who’ve known each other for a long time. Like two people who’d never had to watch who they allowed to get close to them for fear of exposing a life-altering secret.

By the end of dinner, Jongdae’s decided he hates the rabbit a little bit, too.

Not enough to be rude to him. But enough not to bother getting to know him or paying much attention to the things he says. Jongdae doesn’t owe his attention to any of these people. He’s here to do a job, and if he must do it, he’d rather get it over with as soon as possible. He just wants to go home, if he even can still call it that. The butcher might have overheard Jongdae’s true identity. He might tell others. By the time Jongdae gets back to the quiet little mountain community, chosen because the only damn ghosts around were either in private houses or the cemetery, not wandering the streets like they are down in the big city, there might be a line at his damn door. People would beg him to accompany them to said private houses and cemeteries, even though 99% of the time they don’t even want to hear what their deceased loved one has to say (if they’re even actually present). They just want Jongdae, in his role as Speaker for the Departed, to tell them they were loved and/or forgiven, cry on him, and get snot on his shoulder.

No fucking thank you.

At least CI Kim had explained that Jongdae would be well paid for his time, with a sizable check instead of just tasty fish dinners (although he was assured that could also continue). So Jongdae will leave this onerous task with enough cash to put a deposit in on some other place to live in some other small quiet town, where he will put up with the damn rash and dye the backs of his ears properly. He never wants to be identified again. He doesn’t deserve this shit. And if he has to suffer, he’ll ensure that misery has company.

ʎ\෴/λ

Except instead of the fox, it’s the human detective that joins Jongdae in the lounge, dropping into the armchair adjacent to the sofa with a satisfied sigh.

“Thanks for bringing dinner. I mean, I know that it wasn’t really your choice, but I enjoyed cooking something other than burgers or chicken wings.”

Jongdae pauses mid-wash of the back of his hand, tongue protruding until he remembers to withdraw it. “Uh. well. You’re welcome, I guess? I mean, you still did all the work…”

Detective Do laughs. “Cooking isn’t really  _ work _ for me. I enjoy it, and Minseok always cleans up afterwards, too.”

Jongdae had wondered where the fox had ended up but of course wasn’t going to ask. So he just nods, bringing his damp hand up to run it over an ear.

"I've never met a cat hybrid before."

Jongdae snorts. "Not that you know of, anyway."

"Good point. So, all cat hybrids pretend to be foxes? Like, dye their fur red, or…?"

A hiss sneaks into Jongdae’s voice. "My fur color is all natural, baby. I have no idea what other cats do, but even if I did, I wouldn't give you any clues to track them down and harass them, too."

"Fair," Detective Do laughs. "Still. It must feel unnatural to pretend to be something else all the time."

Jongdae blinks. Then he laughs. Long and loud, enough to pull curious faces from the kitchen and the workroom.

“Everything all right in here, Mr. Kim?” the CI asks.

With great effort, Jongdae manages to suppress his laughter enough to wheeze out, “He thinks disguising myself is  _ unnatural!” _ The looks on everyone’s faces make Jongdae double over again, and the sharp scent of Detective Do's embarrassment becomes strong enough to penetrate the artificial foxiness that dulls Jongdae’s nose.

"I mean… isn’t it?" the rabbit hybrid asks.

"You seem to put a lot of work into it," the fox hybrid adds.

"Totally would have fooled me, though," the CI says.

Jongdae finally catches his breath enough to set the record straight. "Do you think it's  _ unnatural _ for a chameleon to change color? For a fawn to crouch in the bushes? For a flounder to bury itself in sand?"

The sharp scent of embarrassment grows stronger, but Jongdae’s sick of these privileged fucks, delicious fish or not. 

"Camouflage isn't  _ unnatural. _ It's the most natural thing in the world to want not to be fucking eaten, okay? That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To just be overlooked. To blend in, so I can live my own damn life instead of being jerked around by people who think they’re entitled to my abilities.”

The attitude in the room chills in response to his words, but Jongdae doesn’t care. Let them feel guilty—it was their choice to haul his ass here in the first place, he doesn’t have to pretend to forgive them just because his belly’s full of tasty fish for the first time in probably a decade.

“I didn’t ask for any of this, okay? And I get that your higher-ups don’t care about one cat’s personal feelings in the face of this international murder scandal. But none of this is fun for me, so if we can just get it over with, I can slink back to my low-key life and none of you will have to look at my ugly mug anymore.”

There’s a moment of heavy, awkward silence.

“I’ll take you to the crime scene whenever you’re willing to go,” Detective Kim says.

Jongdae stands up, tail lashing. “No time like the present.”

Detective Do stands up, too, and the three of them stride out of the station in silence.

ʎ\෴/λ

The crime scene is a fancy club on the edge of Seoul, the kind that shows up as the backdrop for photoshoots of rich celebs living it up. Which is probably exactly what Huang Zitao, supermodel and media darling, had been intending to do when he’d arrived at the place a week ago. But somebody had stabbed the guy on the busy dance floor, with a sharp enough blade that the model evidently hadn’t even felt it over the buzz of alcohol and rush of adrenaline. So he’d continued dancing until he collapsed, and by the time anyone in the dimly-lit club figured out his stylish black clubwear was soaked in blood instead of sweat or spilled booze, it was far too late.

It’s a classic scenario for a ghost to linger. Sudden, violent death, a confused soul unable to make sense of what had happened. Jongdae has “exorcised” plenty of these bewildered spirits, mostly in college, mostly to make his own life that much less creepy. He’d notice them as he’d moved from class to class, the victims of foul play or misadventure, drifting around the place they died, time no longer a concrete concept. He’d return when the location was likely to be empty of anyone but himself and the ghost, then patiently convince the ghost that their time on Earth was over and that something better waited for them on the other side. He has no idea if that’s actually true or not, but he’s persuasive enough when he wants to be, so usually, they’d cross over. And then Jongdae could resume his normal routine without having to see their mopey, translucent faces all the damn time.

But the club has surprisingly few ghosts attached to it for a busy, urban place. There’s a girl sobbing in the bathroom, a guy hovering near the dumpster out back, and a middle-aged businessman clutching his chest in the VIP room. But nothing lingers on the dance floor except the scent of alcohol, sweat, and a hint of vomit.

“He’s not here,” Jongdae reports with a shrug. “Can I go home now?”

Both detectives stare at him. The fox flicks an ear.

“Very funny,” Detective Do says. “But seriously. What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything, because he’s not here.”

Detective Do looks over at Detective Kim, but the fox shakes his head.

“His faux-fox scent is strong, but he still doesn’t smell like he’s lying.”

Detective Do frowns. “So… Huang Zitao crossed over?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jongdae says. “I just said he’s not here. But another cat was. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Another cat?”

“I don’t smell another cat.”

Jongdae rolls his eyes. “Would you even recognize a cat hybrid’s scent?”

Detective Kim’s cheeks try to blend in with his hair. “Uh. Maybe not?”

With a huff, Jongdae beckons the fox closer. When he hesitates, Jongdae lashes his tail. “Oh, just come here. I promise not to scratch your pretty little face.”

Reeking of unease, Detective Kim steps into Jongdae’s personal space, allowing Jongdae to pull his face against his jawline where a cat’s natural scent radiates the strongest. Jongdae scowls the whole time, resentful as fuck that the closest anyone’s gotten to him since his few human dates in college is a fucking cop only interested in what Jongdae can  _ do _ rather than who he  _ is. _

“Just sniff me and go track the guy who smells like that,” he grumbles.

Detective Kim inhales, forcefully enough to pull trails of air across Jongdae’s sensitive neck. He snorts, then sniffs again, and Jongdae resists the urge to shiver.

“You smell  _ amazing,” _ the fox moans.

Jongdae shoves him away. “It’s just new to you, not some kind of olfactory crack. Now you’ll notice it in the environment, though, right?”

Detective Kim Nods.

“Well, there’s your clue.  _ Now _ can I go home?”

Detective Do shakes his head, eyes on his coworker who’s now snuffling the air like a pointy-eared bloodhound. “If he hasn’t crossed over, we still need you to interview the revenant of Huang Zitao. How sure are you that his spirit is still on the mortal plane?”

Jongdae shrugs. “Not sure at all. It’s not like they explode in lingering glitter when they cross over or anything. All I know is he’s not here but a cat was.”

Detective Do looks at the floor, his full lower lip between his teeth. Then he looks around, thick black brows arching as if they’d somehow help him see the unseeable.

Jongdae sighs. “I can ask the other three ghosts before I try to coax them to cross over, if you want.”

Detective Do’s eyes go wider than usual. “There are other ghosts?”

“Of course there are other ghosts,” Jongdae scoffs. “You think nobody’s died in a club like this?”

“Oh. Well. I mean, I guess the odds are good…”

“People die all over the place in a big city like this. Why do you think I live in the goddamn country?”

“I… never thought of that.”

“Of course not. You don’t  _ have _ to. You get to live your blissfully ignorant life and only pay attention to things you find useful.”

Ears flat, Jongdae turns on a heel, heading towards the ladies’ room. The sobbing girl is the least likely to know anything useful, but the wails are grating on his nerves, so she has to go if Jongdae’s trapped in the vicinity.

“Are they gross?”

Jongdae’s ears swivel to catch the detective’s question. His head follows, just enough to raise a brow at the sheepish-looking human.

“Are what gross?”

“The ghosts. Like, are they all decomposed and disgusting like in movies?”

Jongdae shrugs. “They look like they did at the moment of death. Heart-attack dude upstairs looks mostly fine except for the mottled skin tone. OD guy out back is fine except for the blood running down his arm from the needle and the foam around his mouth. And choked-on-her-own-vomit girl in the bathroom looks ready for a party, you know, except for the chunks spewed all down her face and clothing.”

The detective looks rather pale. “But, like, a car crash? Or a fire?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“And you could see them since you were a kitten? Er, a kid?”

“Yeah, dude. The sixty-six years of Sight starts at birth.”

Detective Do gapes. 

Jongdae turns away, more than happy to head toward the ear-piercing wails of the ghost in the ladies’ room. Anything to escape the reek of  _ pity. _

ʎ\෴/λ

Vomit girl doesn’t know anything, including that she’s dead. But she’s convinced to embrace the afterlife fairly readily, which is a relief for Jongdae’s poor ears. The paunchy exec upstairs tries to argue with Jongdae, then tries to bribe him with an exorbitant sum to restore him to life. Jongdae tries to explain to him that’s not how it works, but the guy is evidently used to throwing money at problems. He refuses to accept his own demise, telling Jongdae he’ll “wait for a better offer.” Rolling his eyes, Jongdae heads out to the alley.

The ghost by the dumpster would have been handsome except for all the track marks and the too-gaunt figure, cheeks sharper than Jongdae’s own due to the ravages of drugs. But addiction claims the clever as well as the stupid, and the guy’s translucent eyes light up at the sight of Jongdae.

“Whoa. Another kitty.”

_ “Another _ kitty?”

“You’re way cuter. All soft and puffy.”

Jongdae’s tail creeps into the air. “Oh? What did the other kitty look like?”

“You know—like, an alley cat. Scruffy. Sad. Big heavy collar. Crooked gray tail. All stretched out and skinny.”

“Did he talk to you, too?”

“Nah. The mean doggy dude wouldn’t let him. Just yelled at him to hurry up, but he could only go as fast as the bloody guy.”

This makes Jongdae’s ears rise to full alertness. “Bloody guy?”

“Yeah, you know. Like. All drifty and confused. Like he was high or something, on that really good shit.”

_ Or, you know. Like. Dead. _

Jongdae manages not to roll his eyes. “Sounds like a good time, bro.”

“Totally.”

“So the bloody guy followed the kitty and the mean doggy dude?”

“Yeah.”

"What did the doggy dude look like?"

"Dumb. Ugly. Like, ugly because he was too dumb to open the glass door instead of tryna go thru it."

“Right… And which way did they go?”

The ghost lifts a translucent arm and points out of the nightclub district. Again, Jongdae fights not to roll his eyes, at himself this time. Of course they’d leave the area. But why would anyone convince a ghost to follow them? And how would they even manage it? Jongdae had always assumed that ghosts were bound to the area they died in, because he’d see them in the same places for years. Surely if they could move around, they would, right?

Not if they were as ignorant to their own agency as Jongdae was. Which seems logical—hell, most of them don’t even know they’re dead. Maybe some of them go back to their homes, and Jongdae had just assumed they’d died there. It’s not exactly like he asked for their life stories before prodding them towards the afterlife.

But this particular ghost could still be useful, so Jongdae reluctantly decides to let him linger for a while longer. He gives the guy what he hopes is a conspiratorial smile.

“Hey, if you see any other kitties, don’t tell them I was here, okay? We’re playing hide and seek, you know, and the winner gets a really big… hit?” Jongdae’s knowledge of druggie terminology is only informed by bad American movies, so he has no idea if that’s the right word for whatever the guy had done to himself.

Luckily, the ghost’s chapped lips stretch into a gap-toothed smile. “Yeah, dude. I got your back. You’ll share it with me when you win, right, bro?”

“Totally, bro.”

Detective Do has a surprisingly cute smile for someone who’s usually so serious. But he grins down at his tablet as Jongdae relays the description of the dog-like guy and sad cat hybrid who’d lured Huang Zitao’s ghost from the scene of his death.

Jongdae can’t keep his own tail from curving in a very un-vulpine manner. “They must have known who he is, or had something to do with it, because why else would they ghost-nap the guy?”

“Ghost-nap?” Detective Do laughs.

“Oh, like you cops have a better term for spectral abduction.”

“No, no, I love it. I’m sure Lu Han will enjoy being the first cop to book someone for felony ghost-napping.”

Jongdae suppresses a frown at the mention of the rabbit hybrid. “There’s a first time for everything,” he agrees.

They both look up as Detective Kim comes panting up to them, breathing echoing in the dark of the shut-down club.

“I tracked that scent as far as the edge of the district,” he says, bending to catch his breath.

“Yeah, we know,” Detective Do says, flipping the cover over his tablet. "We’ll put out an APB for the cat and his associate—their appearance is striking enough that if anyone’s seen them, they’ll—”

“Wait. How do you know what they look like?”

“The ghost out back told me.” 

The fox hybrid gapes at Jongdae. “The what—and you—you just let me run all that way, sniffing the pavement while all the hot clubbers watched me like I was off my rocker?”

“Yep.” Jongdae can’t fully suppress a smirk of his own as Detective Do laughs at his flustered comrade.

“…That… is  _ hilarious.” _

Detective Kim laughs all the way back to the squad car, making Detective Do chuckle along with him. Jongdae just trails along, utterly bemused.

He’d pretended to be a fox for most of his life. But that doesn’t mean he’ll ever manage to understand this one.

ʎ\෴/λ

The Violent Crimes division springs into motion when the three of them get back to headquarters, suddenly full of many more people who all talk at top volume while running from room to room waving tablets and printouts. Jongdae would love to retreat to the nap room, but instead he’s told to sit and stay in a chair in front of Detective Kim’s desk like he’s some kind of domestic dog.

Not that Jongdae has anything against dogs, per se. He was raised by one, after all (and woe to the person who dares call his mother a bitch). But Jongdae doesn’t sit still well. Keeping his tail still in public has become a habit so ingrained that he does it automatically when other people are around, especially loud, kinetic people. But he still needs to fidget, so he taps his fingertips on the arm of his chair, then on the top of Detective Kim’s desk.

He jumps a little when Detective Kim flies into the room, setting down a styrofoam cup of coffee atop his desk and dropping into his swivel chair. He types something rapidly into the computer, then jumps up and rushes away again, not even acknowledging Jongdae at all.

Jongdae huffs, licking the back of his hand and running it over an ear in a self-soothing gesture he’d never usually dream of indulging in public. But there’s no point in suppressing himself here, so he does it again on the other side, wrapping his tail around his middle where he can comb his fingers through the long, thick fur. He normally teases it a little, keeping it more on the bushy rather than the silky side, but it soothes his nerves to work all the tangles out of it, straightening each hair to lie neatly alongside the others.

Detective Do runs into the room, calling out a quick “Thanks for your patience, Mr. Kim!” before darting out again with his arms full of printouts.

And when Jongdae looks up in response to his name, his gaze lands on Detective Kim’s abandoned cup of coffee.

Oh, the temptation.

Resisting such urges was one of the first things his parents had taught him, long before the act would have outed him as the kitten he was pretending not to be. His parents disliked messes, and Jongdae, being an obedient little mama’s boy, had striven to be tidy.

But this isn’t his home. He feels no obligation to these people. They’re inconveniencing him, and he has little recourse if he wants to stay out of jail.

Jongdae nudges the cup.

It’s quick, just a darting out of his hand to push slightly at it, pulling his hand back with a frown when the styrofoam refuses to slide nicely over the polished wood of the desk. He pushes at it again, lower down, but the cup only sloshes.

Good thing Jongdae has opposable thumbs.

He picks up the cup, carefully, and sets it on the very edge of Detective Kim’s desk, right near the aisle that everyone rushes up and down when they dart through the workroom.

Then he waits.

The next time Detective Kim barrels toward his desk, Jongdae strikes, knocking the cup of lukewarm coffee over to splash against the floor—and drench Detective Kim’s neatly-pressed white button-down.

Detective Kim gapes down at his ruined clothing.

Jongdae smirks, relaxing back in his chair to examine a claw. That’ll teach him to ignore a cat.

Then he frowns when the fox hybrid’s laughter rings out through the workroom.

“Mr. Kim, if you wanted a cop to strip for you, there are numbers you can call.”

And then, before Jongdae can make any sort of response, Detective Kim starts unbuttoning his ruined shirt.

"Keep your damn clothes on," Jongdae hisses. 

"Surely you don't expect me to just walk around and drip coffee everywhere."

He shrugs out of his shirt, toned shoulders flexing above fit arms. Jongdae scowls, because a spontaneous gun show is just the sort of thing a cop would do, but then Detective Kim whips off his coffee-soaked singlet.

Jongdae may or may not have to choke off a yowl.

The infuriating fox gives him a cheeky wink as he flexes his pecs and abs in Jongdae’s direction. "Too bad I'm on the clock, huh?"

"No!"

Detective Kim only chuckles. "You know, now that I'm attuned to your  _ real _ scent, it's much easier to detect under all that musk."

"Fuck off, you perv."

Snickering, Detective Kim hooks his ruined clothing over his shoulder and saunters off.

Jongdae gives in to the urge to hiss at his well-muscled back.

ʎ\෴/λ

It's well into the evening before anyone comes back into the workroom. Jongdae must have drifted off despite the uncomfortable chair, because he startles when someone plunks into the seat beside him.

"Really made a mess in here, huh?" Officer Lu observes.

Jongdae only curls a lip. Then he lifts a brow when the rabbit hybrid holds something out to him. It's a pint of mint-choco ice cream and a plastic spoon. He considers turning up his nose, but he's fucking  _ hungry. _ The fish was hours ago, his neck hurts from having fallen asleep in the chair, and he just wants to go home.

Since that's not looking likely, Jongdae takes the ice cream as consolation. 

Officer Lu beams, long ears waggling. "Kyungsoo's caught up with paperwork, which is bad news for a proper dinner. I'm not much of a cook, but I figured you could use a snack at least if we're not going to let you go."

Jongdae forces himself to mutter a "thank you."

"It’s literally the least we can do. Bureaucracy sucks."

Nodding, Jongdae pulls the lid from his ice cream and begins shoveling it into his mouth. 

Humming around his own spoonful, Officer Lu leans into the aisle to inspect the Jackson Pollock impression marring the off-white tiles of the floor. "Min must really have a thing for you."

Jongdae snorts. "How the fuck do you figure?"

Officer Lu lifts both ears and brows over wide, blinking eyes, then huffs through a wry smile. "Right, it'd be difficult to pick up on in present company, but Officer Kim Minseok is, shall I say, obsessively tidy. Yet he's tolerating this mess, despite the fact that outside of his own family, he doesn't indulge anyone except for three key people: the boss, because, well, he’s the boss; Kyungsoo, because he feeds him, and me, because we've been pals since our academy days. Once you've tossed your lunch into the bushes side by side with someone over your first encounter with victim decomp, there's no point in adhering to formalities of any kind. Certain liberties and privileges are just assumed."

Jongdae curls a lip. As gross as ghosts sometimes appear, at least they don't have any sort of smell. Dealing with death 'in the flesh' must be horrific.

"But aside from the three of us, Officer Kim’s tolerance for disrespect is low. He usually gets all clipped and perfectly polite in response, but with you he just laughs it off. I've seen him toss people into a holding cell to cool down over much milder insults than ruining his shirt."

Jongdae snorts. "He can't do that to me, he needs me to be all cooperative so the boss doesn't hassle him."

"Or you."

"But mostly him."

The officer shrugs. "If you're not into him, that's only the better for my own offer."

Eyes narrow and ears flat, Jongdae cuts his gaze to the rabbit at his side. Officer Lu is the picture of harmlessness, smiling amiably around the spoonful of ice cream in his pretty little mouth. 

"Another 'offer' for me to help the good cops of Seoul with a case?"

Officer Lu's ears lift. "I mean, we wouldn't turn it down. But no—this offer is strictly personal."

Jongdae’s ears press tight against his scalp. 

"Don't look so suspicious! I'm only saying that I think you’re really cute, and if my cop instincts are correct, your, er,  _ camouflaged  _ lifestyle probably means you haven't had much in the way of private companionship, presuming what I've heard about the distinctive nature of male feline anatomy is true."

Jongdae's hostility to this line of inquiry rumbles harshly in the back of his throat. Officer Lu's hands lift into the air along with his ears.

"Hey, I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just pointing out that rabbits generally have high libidos and are usually happy to enjoy an opportunistic hookup, and I'm no exception. I mean, I already know you're a cat, right? So if you were interested in sharing the nap room before you leave, I'd be up for it. Literally."

"Officer Lu Han, are you seriously propositioning our key Special Consultant?"

Jongdae and the rabbit both turn as one to blink at Detective Kim, who's wearing a clean, professional shirt and a disapproving scowl.

The officer recovers first. "Uh, why not? It's just a no-pressure recreational offer entirely separate from the case."

"Uh, because it's unprofessional and could cause the department to be accused of inducing bias. Do you want to cause a mistrial and make us track down some other cat and have to do this whole thing again?"

"Sheesh, Min, don't get your britches in a twist." Officer Lu turns back to Jongdae with a roll of his eyes. "He's cranky without enough coffee, isn't he? But he has a point—we can just get together after the trial instead. I promise not to ruin your camouflage with the locals where you live. It's totally normal for one hybrid to visit another on their own time, right?"

Minseok is glaring at the back of Officer Lu's head coldly enough that Jongdae expects the rabbit's ears to ice over. The fox's own ears are pointed forward, almost predatory, body held in tight-coiled lines that carry no hint of the jovial teasing that had colored all of Jongdae’s previous interactions with the detective. 

Jongdae hates that he finds it the teeniest bit hot.

Following Jongdae's gaze, Officer Lu glances over his shoulder and chuckles.

"Jealous, there, Min? Maybe if foxes weren't so obnoxious, he—" 

_ "Or," _ Jongdae interrupts, "How about I just finish whatever ghost-interviewing duties the Republic of Korea needs me to do, so I can go home where nobody will try to use me for any of my body parts?" He lashes his tail against the hard plastic of the chair, feeling zero guilt over the rabbit's wince. Catboys aren't toys for other hybrids to play with, either, and Jongdae’s sexual services certainly aren't available to be bought with a tub of ice cream. He's still going to eat that ice cream, though, because it's delicious.

Detective Kim stalks over to his desk, curling a lip and skirting the drying puddle of coffee on the floor with all the fastidiousness of a feline himself. He sits down across from Jongdae, giving him a tight-lipped smile.

"I apologize, Mr. Kim, for keeping you waiting for so long in such trying circumstances." He shoots another glare at the still-snickering rabbit, as if he hadn’t called Jongdae a  _ pretty little kitty  _ himself less than twelve hours ago. "You've been very helpful, and if this lead pans out, we should be able to return you to your home in a timely manner."

Officer Lu perks up. "Ooh, a lead? Do I get to arrest anyone yet?"

"Yes, actually," Minseok says, pulling a photo out of the folder he'd carried in and sliding it across the slightly spattered surface of the desk. 

It's of a jowly man with small dark eyes, hybrid status revealed more by his lack of human ears than by the presence of the small folded canine ears all but lost in his up-gelled blond hair. Jongdae snorts, because while the guy is well groomed and styled and many would find the obvious wealth attractive, all Jongdae can see is the OD ghost's judgment of 'too dumb to open a glass door before trying to walk through it.'

"Damiano Doggé, son of Domenico Doggé and newest board member of Doggé & Gabbana. We'd already pulled the club's security camera footage for the night of the murder, of course, but with a specific target to look for, we were able to subpoena everything from the murder until the time we took you to the club. With his short tail and rosebud ears, Doggé is easily able to pass for human, and he'd dressed the cat in a luxury tracksuit with a hood, tail evidently tucked down a pantleg. Like this, they didn't look at all remarkable among the rest of the mostly-human club goers—that 'collar' the spectral witness mentioned seems to be silver, in line with a lot of the avant-garde fashion accessories of wealthy youth. The footage of them walking slowly out the back door of the club isn’t incriminating on its own, and of course the, er, evidence they were tampering with doesn’t show up on the recording."

"Evidence tampering?" Jongdae scoffs. "They abducted a whole ghost and you’re calling it  _ evidence tampering?" _

Detective Kim sighs. "It wasn't my call, okay? But revenants have no legal rights. It's not illegal to move them, either like this or by exorcism, whether against their will or not."

Jongdae scoffs again. "I only  _ wish _ they could be 'exorcised' against their will. At least, _I_ don't know how to do it. If they won't walk into the light, it's not like I can just shove them on through."

Detective Kim tilts his pointy little fox chin, brows furrowed and lips parting around an inhalation, curiosity evident in the twitch of his ears. But then he shakes his head and continues, "Yes, well. There just aren't any laws at all about them except regarding the validity of spectral testimony, so this is the DA's call. By removing the revenant of Huang Zitao before we could glean any available information, Mr. Doggé and this cat are obstructing justice, so that’s what we're charging them with—to start with, at least."

Jongdae frowns down at the security camera stills. Even in the grainy images, the body language of the taller, slimmer figure screams of reluctance.

"I don't think the cat is any more a willing participant in tampering with your ghostly evidence than I am in interpreting it for you," Jongdae huffs. "But how do you know the stocky guy is this Doggé?"

"We can't prove it is from this alone, of course, but we also subpoenaed the security footage from the surrounding clubs for this date, and one of them—" Detective Kim slides another image from the folder. "—caught the car that dropped them off."

The car the stocky figure is climbing out of is a matte carbon gray, but the color is the only understated thing about it. It's coiled like a panther, all sleek lines and skinny tires. Jongdae’s not a car guy, but he's never seen anything like it. He doubts the car is common, which makes the mud splashed conveniently over the number plate an absolutely laughable attempt at obscurity. 

"How long did it take your desk cops to figure out which of the two of those things in all of Seoul was the one that dropped off your ghost-napper?"

The smile Detective Kim gives Jongdae is the closest to genuine he's seen from the guy since he'd been belting pop songs in the car as he'd driven them into the city. "There were only 100 Pagani Huayra Roadsters ever made, actually, and only a handful of them are painted 'Grigio Opaco.' One of which is registered to Doggé, and the fact that it was registered in Italy seems irrelevant to someone whose family business ships goods all over the world. Since he hasn't reported it stolen, this strongly implies he or someone in his domestic employ is involved even without precisely ID-ing the figures in the video. It's enough for a warrant to search his private property for the car—and any other related evidence."

His ears splay out to the sides as he gives Jongdae what might be termed  _ puppy eyes _ if they weren't displayed by an obnoxious cat-abducting detective. "I know it's getting late and you're probably exhausted, but if we stop to get a more substantial meal on the way, might we burden you to ride along to Doggé's estate with us? If Huang Zitao’s revenant is there, we can get what we need from you and get you sent home."

Jongdae is already standing up. "Cats are practically nocturnal," he says, "and I haven't had proper seafood in far too long."

"Ugh, I can't believe you're going to trap me in a car with such a stench," Officer Lu complains, having finally recovered from his chuckle-fit.

"We're not," Detective Kim says. "You'll be trapped in a car with the Chinese Special Foreign Investigator for this case, as soon as he gets here. That was the stipulation of the warrant—since Doggé is an Italian national being implicated in a crime against a Chinese citizen, the DA felt it best if a member of the Chinese law enforcement was on hand for any further investigation or arrests."

Officer Lu's ears droop. "So I don't actually get to arrest anyone."

"Sure you do—SFI Zhang Yixing is technically out of his jurisdiction here, but you’re fluent in Mandarin in addition to having arresting agency. You’re his partner while he's in the country."

"I hope he's not a speciest asshole, or he’s about to find out that rabbits aren't easy prey," Officer Lu mutters.

"If you have to kick his ass, I'll testify to your exemplary service record," Detective Kim promises.

"Why are you already planning to assault the foreign investigator whose presence is apparently allowing you to crash this Doggé's party?" Not that Jongdae cares about the Chinese investigator in particular, but it's unsettling how chaotic this pair of purported keepers of order are turning out to be. Jongdae never thought he'd be missing the presence of a human cop, but he's much more comfortable with Detective Do's steady but benign ignorance than this hot-headed duo.

"Because hybrids aren't allowed to be cops in China—that's why I moved here," Officer Lu explains. "I can't be a detective like Minseokkie because I'm not a citizen, but at least I'm taken seriously instead of having my dreams entirely dismissed."

"Oh," Jongdae says, unsure where to go from there.

He knows laws regarding hybrids are different in various parts of the world, but since Asia was where hybrids originated, it tends to hold the most integrated countries. For the most part, humans in Korea seem to view hybrids as neighbors rather than novelties—the only hassle Jongdae has ever encountered has had to do with his being a cat specifically rather than a hybrid in general. Perhaps humans aren't the only privileged people around.

"Yeah, well, I miss Beijing Street food, but in Korea, I get Minseok and this shiny pair of handcuffs—which I can absolutely bring when I visit you after the trial—"

"Boss wants to brief you regarding your assistance of SFI Zhang," Detective Kim states, jerking his chin toward CI Kim's office.

Cackling like the maddest of March hares, Officer Lu saunters off.

ʎ\෴/λ

The ride to the Doggé estate is made almost pleasant by the addition of Detective Do and a basket full of fried squid. Jongdae’s so enraptured by the crispy, chewy meal that he could be eating it in a dumpster floating down the Han River for all he cares.

At the sound of a soft little hum, he looks up from the rapidly emptying basket in his lap to find Detective Kim smiling at him over the back of the front seat. He smiles wider at Jongdae’s questioning trill.

"Nothing," he dismisses. "It's just nice to see that not everything about this experience is horrible for you."

Jongdae narrows his eyes. Detective Kim’s eyes just curve into merry crescents. Jongdae curls a lip, choosing to drop all his attention back to his meal.

"You reek of squid," Officer Lu complains when the three of them pile out of the car in front of the estate. "You hate squid." 

There's a handsome human in a different uniform standing beside the rabbit cop, who trades polite bows with Jongdae. 

"Our guest requested it," Officer Kim says with an easy shrug.

Jongdae suddenly realizes the detective merely nibbled at his own portion during their journey. He refuses to feel guilty about this. The fox can stuff his smirking face with whatever he wants without risking strangers hauling him off to play Nation's Emcee for the dead. Maybe Jongdae will demand squid every meal until they let him go the fuck home. 

"Such a man of service," Officer Lu teases.

But Detective Kim only smiles. "Seeing him happy was worth it."

"Right," Officer Lu drawls. "Gotta keep the Special Consultant in a cooperative mood."

Detective Kim blinks. "Right—that, too."

Officer Lu snickers. Then he turns to the smiling human at his side. "Special Foreign Investigator Zhang, these are Detectives Do and Kim, along with our Special Consultant, Mr. Kim."

More bows are exchanged, and Jongdae tries not to be affronted by the Chinese investigator’s curious gaze.

"Mediums dress a lot more casually here than they do at home," he says when he catches Jongdae’s narrowing gaze. "Does that affect your performance?"

"My what?" Jongdae asks. "I'm an electrician. We usually wear coveralls, but I was nabbed in the middle of grocery shopping, so I'm not in my work clothes. But I'm stuck seeing ghosts no matter what I wear, so I'm not sure how my clothes are relevant at the moment."

"I see," Investigator Zhang nods sagely. "How frustrating for you. Mediums in China make good money, no need for any second job." He turns to Detective Kim. "You should revere your medium properly, pay him better," he admonishes. 

"I'm not a medium," Jongdae states, tail thrashing. "I don't want to be revered or better paid. I just want to be allowed to go home and curse at rodent-chewed wiring in peace."

He ignores Investigator Zhang's shock and turns back to Detective Kim. "Your ghost is in the basement. Get me down there so we can get this over with."

"We have to be methodical, I'm afraid," Detective Kim says, ears splayed. "There's a lot of evidence between here and there that needs to be properly documented. But it's a relief to know we're in the right place." He gestures to the car, bushy tail giving a single half-hearted wag. "You're welcome to rest while we sniff out the evidence."

"Or listen for it," Officer Lu adds, waggling his long ears. "I knew we were in the right place as soon as we shut the cars off—I can hear clinking chains."

"That's such a cheesy Hollywood portrayal," Jongdae scoffs. "Ghosts aren't actually draped in chains. And there's no way you'd hear anything in that basement out here, anyway."

"My ears are way more sensitive than yours—how do you know what a rabbit can or can't hear? I don't question what a cat can or can't  _ see," _ Officer Lu huffs. "And I never said the chains are from the ghost—didn't your report say the cat was wearing a heavy collar?"

Feeling a bit sheepish, Jongdae pulls his ears flat, moving closer to Detective Kim before he can stop himself, as if the fox would somehow protect him from the rabbit's (justified) irritation.

"Sorry," Jongdae offers, tail curved against his leg.

But Detective Lu is all smiles again. "It's understandable. We all filter the world through the lens of our own experience until someone else puts things into another perspective." He turns to Investigator Zhang. "You're welcome to wait here with our consultant while we take care of the worldly business."

"I'm here to assist, not sit," Investigator Zhang protests.

"Trust me, Sir," Detective Do says, giving away one of his disarmingly-sweet heart-shaped smiles. "With Detective Kim’s nose and Officer Lu's ears, there's little we humans can do but get in their way."

Investigator Zhang's face is an open book of astonishment. "Perhaps I will petition the department to allow us to make use of hybrids and their abilities."

"Yes, can't let any of us go un-exploited," Jongdae mumbles, way too low for a human to hear.

But not too low for a rabbit. "There's a difference between exploitation and opportunity," Officer Lu says as Jongdae climbs back into the car.

"I suppose there is," Jongdae acknowledges through the open window, nodding at the steel grid separating the back of the vehicle from the front. "And I suppose most of that difference is which end of the squad car you're sitting in."

Detective Kim frowns but Officer Lu merely rolls his eyes as he turns toward the mansion, door now opened by the entry team. Then he yips, jumping nearly a meter into the air with his hands curved protectively over his rump.

He regards the Chinese investigator warily when he lands. "Did… did you just slap me?"

"No," Investigator Zhang says, sounding offended. "I just patted you. For encouragement and solidarity. Like in American baseball."

He turns from wide-eyed face to wide-eyed face. "Do any of you watch that sport? I must admit it's one of my favorites."

"Er, sometimes," Detective Kim says, flashing his canines in a brief smile. "Please wait comfortably here and we'll notify you the minute we find something noteworthy."

Detective Do lingers for a moment as the two hybrids move off, leaning in to murmur to the visiting detective that it's rather rude to pat a hybrid, especially near their tail.

"Nonsense," Investigator Zhang dismisses. "If hybrids are an equal part of your workforce, it would be ruder of me to discriminate by not encouraging them as I would a human." He takes a seat beside Jongdae in the back of the squad car,, then reaches through the window to pat Detective Do's round little rump. "Hurry and clear the way to our ghost!"

At least three different reactions wrestle for control of Detective Do's face. In the end, he merely bows smartly, backing well out of reach before turning and making for the mansion.

Investigator Zhang lifts an eyebrow at Jongdae. "It would be ruder not to, wouldn't it?"

Jongdae shrugs. "But for the record,  _ I'm  _ not a part of their workforce, so try it with me and bleed."

Investigator Zhang's other eyebrow joins the first in hovering below his hairline. Then they swoop in unison as he catches sight of the nearly-untouched basket of squid that was supposed to be Detective Kim’s portion. 

"Do you think anyone would mind? They flew me in directly, and with the urgency of the case I didn't think to ask to stop for food."

Jongdae’s surprised over his own hesitation. Why should he guard the fox's food for him? Especially when, according to the rabbit, he doesn’t even like it in the first place. 

"Go ahead," Jongdae says with a shrug.

Investigator Zhang falls on the abandoned squid with a hum of contentment. And if Jongdae saves his own remaining squid instead of finishing it, it's simply to have a snack for himself for later, not as a response to the idea of the fox's handsome face melting into a pout when he returns to find his own portion devoured.

ʎ\෴/λ

The fox, of course, doesn't even notice the missing squid. When he comes out of the mansion some time later, it's only to collect Jongdae and Investigator Zhang and usher them through the mansion. The oversized house is filled with people: cops, techs, who knows? Detective Kim ignores all of them, extended arms hovering behind his charges like a mother duck rather than a slinky fox.

In the much-less luxurious basement, Officer Lu is hovering protectively, too, over what must be the cat the OD ghost had seen. Jongdae trades a cautious greeting with the other feline, tails lifting, ears swiveling, sniffing tentatively despite the distance between them and the reek of the basement around them. 

The other cat is definitely in scruffy shape. Officer Lu wasn't wrong about hearing chains—they're still embedded into the wall, even if the cops have freed the cat. The silver collar may be pretty, but it’s rubbed a callus over the guy’s neck, and he's definitely missed a few meals. But Officer Lu seems to have the situation well under control, so Jongdae leaves him to it, electing instead to do the job he was brought here for. 

The ghost of Huang Zitao had been slumped against the wall when Jongdae had descended the staircase, doing something Jongdae’s not sure he's ever seen a ghost do before: pouting. It's a perfect echo of Jongdae’s own mood: it's been a long day and a longer night, full of all the personal questions, impositions, and awkward situations Jongdae had moved to the back end of nowhere to escape. Sure, he's eaten well, but he’s feeling more than a little frayed around the edges. Worse, it must be obvious, because Officer Kim has dropped all his vulpine jocularity in favor of steady professionalism. Jongdae had thought he hated the playful banter, but he hates this careful politeness even more.

So even though the ghost perks up at the presence of someone else that can see him, smiling and making as if to stand for greetings, Jongdae indulges his shitty mood. He ignores the ghost’s wide-eyed blink and plops himself down alongside, pulling his knees in to his chest and curling his tail over his feet.

"I don't know about you," Jongdae addresses the ghost, "but I've definitely had better days."

The ghost's alarm dissolves as his smile unfurls, making him look way too sweet and boyish to be clammy and translucent. "Yeah," he says. "Being dead sucks. But it's better with company. Well, company that isn't just as helpless as I am." His Korean is cutely accented, giving him an even more juvenile air and giving Jongdae’s heart another twinge at how profoundly unfair life—and death—is. 

"But you're not helpless," Jongdae says. "I'm surprised you were able to leave the club, but since you managed, surely you could have left this place, too."

The ghost lifts a chin at the collared cat. "Yifan said they'd kill him if I left. I told him to just pretend I was still here, but he said since Doggé is actually a dog, he'd be able to smell it if he lied."

Jongdae nods. "Decent of you to care."

"I'm dead, not an asshole," Huang Zitao huffs. "But I wouldn't have stayed otherwise—I'm really worried about Hunie. I wanted to go and find him, but I don't really know where he lives or even his real name, and even if I did, I wouldn't want to lead Doggé and his henchbrutes there. He doesn't deserve to be killed."

Jongdae shrugs. "Few people do. Yourself, for example—any idea why Doggé had you killed? Assuming it was him."

"It was definitely him," Zitao says darkly. "I mean, I don't know who actually stabbed me, but it must have been on his say-so. I was about to ruin him, and the fact that he blackmailed me away from my own death scene says he knew it."

Jongdae tilts his head. "You're awfully coherent for a ghost."

Zitao’s ethereal eyes widen and dart in all directions. If he had a tail, it would be fully puffed. "Ghost? Where?"

Face scrunched, Jongdae tilts his head the other way. "Er… I meant you."

Zitao leans away from Jongdae, back ramrod-straight.  _ "I'm _ not a ghost. Ghosts are gross and creepy.  _ I'm _ Huang Zitao, media darling, not gross or creepy at all—just bodyless, now, I guess." He frowns at his own incorporeal hands. "Gonna be way harder to post selfies like this."

"Er, right." Jongdae’s met a lot of ghosts that refused to believe they were dead, but this is the first time a lingering spirit has acknowledged their death but denied their ghosthood. Perhaps that's why talking with Zitao is more or less like talking to someone in reality—he still views himself as part of it. Seeing himself as not alive but 'not a ghost' seems to enable him to remain anchored to the present rather than the drifting, internalized perception of most spirits, who are generally either caught in the shock of their own demise, fervently projecting an idealized state over their trauma, or narrowly focused on some uncompleted task.

Detectives Kim and Zhang are narrowly focused on their own incomplete task despite both being very much alive. The pair of cops are hovering over Jongdae, looking awkwardly at the ground every once in a while as if unsure they're not standing amidst lingering human energy. Detective Kim keeps looking at Jongdae, but Investigator Zhang is staring eagerly at the wall beside him, squinting and changing angles as if the exact right position would let him see what Jongdae does. They both look like they're about to burst from the strain of not asking Jongdae what's going on, so he decides to have mercy on them. They're only doing their jobs, and the quicker they can do so, the quicker Jongdae can go home.

He introduces himself and the detectives to Zitao, then recounts the conversation thus far, watching with detached amusement as their eyebrows rise and fall in synchronized reaction.

"Ruin him for what?" Detective Kim asks when Jongdae’s relaying ends.

"For exploiting undocumented hybrid labor in their factories," Zitao answers. "Hunie figured it out. He's a journalism student at KNU. His roommate's in the dance and modeling programs, and he keeps the pair of them fashionable—D&G was one of his favorite brands. But he kept smelling urine in their closet—he's a canine hybrid, a dog, I think? And at first they thought it was rats or something. So they got a blacklight, and went looking for the fluorescent pee patches to tell them where they were getting in."

"Why am I already sure they didn't find any?" Jongdae asks.

Zitao tries to knuckle his shoulder. They both shiver when his fist merely passes through instead of nudging up against Jongdae’s sleeve.

"Because if it was just rats, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Or at least, I wouldn't be including it in Hun’s story."

"So what was it?"

"Cat hybrid pee, probably."

"Probably?"

"Well, they didn't have it tested or anything, but it glowed under blacklight, had a scent that was vaguely feline but 'definitely not domestic cat' per the roommate, and—the more important part—was all over one of his new G&B T-shirts. As  _ writing." _

"Writing?" Jongdae echoes. 

This makes the observing detectives lean close enough that they're in danger of falling over. 

"Oh, just sit down already," Jongdae huffs up at them.

They sheepishly comply, and Jongdae definitely does not notice how Detective Kim positions himself closest to Jongdae, near enough for their knees to barely touch. He simply relays the conversation again, letting Investigator Zhang ask the obvious follow-up. 

"What did it say?"

"Well, it was in Mandarin, so they couldn't read it at first," Zitao answers. "But Hun copied it down and took it to one of the language professors, saying it was a note his friend had left him as a joke, and he wanted to surprise him by responding to whatever it said."

The ghost shakes his head, smile still wide even as he stares at the cement floor between his incorporeal knees. "Poor Hunie—the professor said he'd translate for him, but that the best surprise for his friend would be if Hun really did learn how to understand it himself, so he had to enroll in an Intro to Mandarin class on top of his already-full schedule. And when the teacher did translate it, he told Hun that his friend should talk to the student aid center if he was really struggling so much."

"Oh?"

"It was a long ramble about not getting enough to eat, working too hard, long hours, suffering if they didn't produce enough, and so on. Hun laughed it off in front of the professor, of course, saying his friend always had a dramatic streak and reminding him it was a joke in the first place. And of course he was really creeped out, because who'd sneak into their closet to leave some desperate-sounding piss-note."

"Oh, but then they decided it had been pissed on before it ever got into their closet?"

The press of Detective Kim’s knee reminds Jongdae to keep the non-sighted in the loop, serving as the medium he denies being. With considerate pauses for Jongdae to repeat his words, Zitao relates how Hun had snuck blacklights into fashion shops and raided friends' closets to find more piss-written notes, and how the local police had dismissed it as a college prank when Hun and his roommate had tried to report what they'd found.

"So Hun DM'd me on Fotobook, since I'm the D&G ambassador, thinking maybe if I were the one reporting it, it would be taken more seriously. And I thought it was a prank, too, of course, but my little dog was difficult to housebreak—shit, what happened to Candy?" The ghost suddenly looks heartbreakingly distressed.

"Your dog?" Jongdae directs his gaze to the detectives. "He wants to know if his dog's okay."

"His mother has her," Detective Kim reports. "Picked her up right away."

Zitao’s translucent face smoothes in relief. "Good. They'll be good for each other." His smile is misty.

"So, your dog was difficult to housebreak?" Jongdae prods when the ghost’s melancholy drags out longer than Jongdae’s patience. 

"Oh! Yes. So I had this oopsie-finder light, you know, a blacklight so I could clean her messes thoroughly. And the next time I grabbed one of my own D&G shirts to wear, well. I got curious enough to check."

"Writing?"

"Writing," Zitao confirms. "Sad writing. And I knew no one had been in my closet to prank me—Candy may be terrible for the carpets, but she’s great for peace of mind. Nothing escapes her notice. So I knew it had at least happened before I bought it."

Jongdae continues to relay Zitao’s story to the detectives—how he'd still suspected a prank but maybe at the D&G distributor, how he'd compared notes with Hun online, how they'd moved their chats from socmed DMs to a more secure message service, information the detectives are very keen to have.

"If you give us your login information, we can track down this Hun more quickly," Detective Kim says, and Zitao is happy to comply.

"They might have more questions for you," Jongdae says sheepishly after the detectives have both broken away to have urgent phone conversations in two languages. "So if it's not too much to ask, could you try not to cross over until after the trial?"

"I'm not crossing over until I know Hunie's okay," Zitao says firmly. "And I want to say goodbye to my mom—you'll be my tiny translator, right? How's your Mandarin?"

Jongdae grimaces. "Shitty." He looks over where Officer Lu is murmuring in said language to the scruffy cat. "You should get Yifan to do it."

Hybrid and officer look up at the sound of the name. "Get Yifan to do what?" Officer Lu asks.

"Help Zitao say goodbye to his family. I only know enough Mandarin to greet and thank people, and he probably wants to say a little more than that."

Officer Lu shakes his head. "Bastard got him addicted to Petal as a way to keep him well-behaved. His health and reliability as a witness are too compromised at this point for him to do anything except for detox and rehab."

Jongdae curls a lip. The innocent-sounding street name for chemically enhanced nepetalactone—the reactive compound in catnip—doesn't make it any less life-ruining. Poor guy has much bigger problems at the moment than dealing with ghosts.

"Oh. Well. Then of course he needs to be seen to. I wish him a full recovery."

Officer Lu evidently translates Jongdae’s words to Mandarin, because a moment later, Yifan gives him a nod of acknowledgment. Then he turns back to Officer Lu, clearly basking in some positive attention after his ordeal.

Zitao is also clearly thrilled to have some attention, particularly from more coherent company than the poor addict. In an effort to make the endless stream of ghostly chatter serve some sort of purpose, at least, Jongdae asks Zitao to tell him more about what happened. The ghost is more than happy to oblige, and Jongdae diligently notes down all the details on a pad Detective Kim provides, from the probably-helpful (descriptions of other people that had come to the house) to the probably-irrelevant (how many bugs Zitao had been terrorized by during his time in the unfinished basement).

When the details drift irretrievably into the definitely-unrelated (which tiny doggie outfit is the cutest on Candy), Jongdae puts his I'm-listening noises on autopilot, slumping over his knees and gazing dully at the peeling paint on the opposite wall. He elects not to draw Zitao’s attention to the little spider furtively scurrying across the pitted surface. He's in no hurry to hear any banshee shrieks—whoever heard of a ghost afraid of bugs? 

Jongdae almost shrieks himself when Detective Kim lays a hand briefly on his shoulder. 

"Sorry. I called your name a few times, but I think you may have fallen asleep." Detective Kim retrieves the notepad,, raising his brow at the number of filled pages before giving Jongdae a careful smile. "Thank you for your help. Ready for a proper rest?"

Jongdae tries not to frown in response. "I don't get to go home?"

The detective winces. "I'm sorry, but the DA needs to interview you in the morning, then interview Huang Zitao’s revenant through you. But since the department is already springing to keep our Special Foreign Investigator in a decent hotel, I convinced them to put you up there, too."

_ A cell is still a cell, _ Jongdae thinks, but he stops the words before they leave his mouth. Detective Kim’s smile is all ready to tip into a wince—he clearly expects Jongdae to object, to hiss at him for relaying someone else’s decision regarding Jongdae’s freedom. And part of Jongdae still wishes the detective were just a little bit worse at his job, hadn’t managed to see through his disguise. But since he  _ is _ good at his job, not only will Huang Zitao’s murder be solved, but who knows how many other lives may be saved by the revelation of D&G's unethical (and definitely illegal) practices.

So it's hard to begrudge having to help, and harder to begrudge the stupid, not-stupid guy that's obviously using that not-stupidness to wrap this case up as quickly as he can. He's not doing it for Jongdae’s sake—he's surely got higher-ups leaning on him to make quick work of justice. But Jongdae still benefits, and if he's managed to get Jongdae’s accommodations upgraded, well, Jongdae benefits further.

He can't quite manage a smile, but Jongdae gives Detective Kim a nod. "Thanks."

He ignores how cute the fox’s surprised eyes and immediately-suppressed tail wag are.

"Well then," Detective Kim says, smile growing slightly. "Your chariot awaits."

"Where's my chariot?"

Jongdae proves his actual species by turning his startle into an almost graceful hop to his feet. Zitao blinks up at him, translucent lips pushed into a pout.

Jongdae blinks back. "Uh. You…"

"Yeah, me! You're not just gonna leave me here, are you?"

Years of self-conditioning turns Jongdae’s instinctive feline ear-flutter into a more foxlike swivel. His head swivels, too, to give Detective Kim a raised brow.

"He wants to come with us?" Jongdae can’t help turning it into a question. Until earlier today—yesterday, now, technically—Jongdae hadn’t been aware that ghosts could move long distances, much less how to transport one.

Part of Jongdae’s brain lasers in on the genuine baffled-fox ear swivel Detective Kim demonstrates, always keen to improve his mimicry. It's definitely not because the fox’s wide blinking eyes and softly-parted lips are in any way adorable. 

"Um. I… don't know if that’s… a thing we can do."

"It's a thing  _ I  _ can do," Zitao insists. "I'm not staying in this boring, creepy basement if it's not keeping someone alive. But it'll be almost as boring wandering the city without anyone to talk to. Besides—" Zitao’s face scrunches. "There are  _ ghosts _ everywhere in Seoul. At least tell me where you'll be, so I can catch up with you. You can talk to me and keep the spooks away."

Jongdae’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly for long enough that Detective Kim calls his name, twice.

"He says he's gonna follow us anyway, and wants to know where I'll be."

"Aww, you made yourself an invisible friend?"

"He wants me to protect him from ghosts."

Detective Kim helpfully performs the ear swivel again. "Uh, does he know…" His voice trails off, glancing furtively at the wall they'd been leaning against. 

Zitao floats around behind him, trailing spectral fingers across the back of the detective’s neck. "Boo."

Although he can't hear the entirely uninflected pronouncement, Detective Kim must have felt  _ something  _ when Zitao touched him, because he  _ leaps _ into the air, high enough that his defensive flail turns him 180 degrees. His bushy tail moves in counterbalance to stop his spin as he lands in an alert half-crouch, ears up and fists at the ready.

Jongdae is both impressed at the fox's ability and disappointed that it's a move he can never hope to recreate. He's also distracted by Zitao folding in half with his mirth, giving Jongdae the disconcerting sight of the model's knees through the back of his head.

"He's laughing at me, isn't he?"

Jongdae just manages to stifle his own chuckle. "Yep."

"Well. I suppose I deserved that. Er, Mr. Huang, the department would really appreciate if you made yourself available for further questioning. It's rare that we get, er, someone of your circumstances that's such a coherent witness, and your information will be key to dragging the whole mess out into the light."

"I already told you, I'm staying with my Tiny. I know Seoul pretty well, so just tell me what hotel and I'll just walk through all the rooms 'til I find you."

"Whoa, wait a minute. Do I have any say in whether or not I get a ghostly attaché?" Jongdae asks, not sure which of the two he's actually addressing. 

But it turns out not to matter, because the ghost of Huang Zitao and Detective Kim both answer as one.

"No."

ʎ\෴/λ

It's Jongdae’s turn to jump and flail later that night (morning?) when he's enjoying the luxurious bathroom in the quite-fancy hotel suite he's been booked into. He's on the edge of letting go of all the tension he's built up over the last 18 hours, when a translucent face emerges from the tile just below the shower head. 

"There you are!" Zitao crows, eyes curving above a grin. His gaze drops from Jongdae’s face to his lap, making Jongdae wish he'd added bubbles to his bath. "Having fun?"

"It's been a long fucking day, okay, I was just trying to release some tension so I can finally sleep."

"I didn't know cat dicks were like weird little cactuses. That looks uncomfortable—no wonder nobody’s having kittens, now that lady cats aren’t being forcibly bred anymore." Zitao lowers himself to 'sit' in the tub opposite Jongdae, wrapping his long arms around knees that don't stick up out of the water but rather  _ through _ the water. "Carry on—how do you even do that, anyway? Don't the spines hurt your hand?"

Jongdae hastily cups both entirely-unharmed hands over his entirely-normal junk. Cat spines might  _ look _ alarming, but they're entirely flexible, actual 'natural male enhancement' to make a guy feel even thicker inside a partner. It's certainly less obnoxious than the knot he'd have if he were actually a fox. Who wants to be physically stuck together after fucking? That's gotta make one-night stands awkward as all hell.

Not that Jongdae’s own were any better. He'd always guarded his secrets carefully, even as a horny college student. So he'd always chosen human hookups, those who'd be unable to tell if arousal sent Jongdae’s own feline scent bursting through the synthetic musk. And he'd never let them see him hard, never let them touch him, had just let himself be folded over bathroom counters or pounded face-down into some sweat-scented mattress. He'd always chosen slightly-tipsy humans, those easily sober enough to consent but not inclined to question his deflections of their wandering hands.

He'd always felt a little gross afterwards, always had to fight the squeezing urge to groom himself thoroughly, settling for a long shower to wash the film of self-loathing away. So he'd eventually settled for long showers altogether, and he'd gotten really good at taking care of himself.

But he's not gonna do it in front of a spectral spectator.

Jongdae’s sigh echoes off the faux-marble tiles. No rest for the whiskered, apparently. 

"I'm going to bed," he informs the ghost as he stands up and steps out of the tub. He curves his tail up between his legs to protect his modesty while freeing a hand to grab his hotel-provided pajama bottoms. "I get that you enjoy company, but I will be very poor company indeed if I don't get some proper sleep."

Zitao’s teasing smirk melts into a wince. "Oh, right—cats do like to get their beauty rest, huh. I promise to be quiet if you put the TV on for me. Sleeping isn't a thing I do anymore."

"Deal," Jongdae readily agrees as Zitao also vacates the tub. Unlike Jongdae, he doesn’t drip on the eco-sisal rug. "What channel?"

"One of the Chinese language ones, please. Something with dramas, maybe?"

Jongdae manages to find some Mandarin fantasy drama and leaves Zitao talking to the characters in Mandarin. And it turns out that Jongdae’s so exhausted that he doesn't need any help getting to sleep at all. 

ʎ\෴/λ

"Tiny!"

Jongdae’s jolted out of a very pleasant dream involving a room full of desks, a coffee cup balanced precariously on the edge of each one. In reality, he finds himself in a hotel room with a translucent face leaning over him and a persistent knocking sound invading his ears.

"Fuck."

"I'd certainly fuck him," Zitao agrees. "That little detective looks like a pocket rocket, fun-sized with all that swagger and muscles everywhere. Get his fuse lit, I bet he'd take a guy to the stars."

"I just want him to take me the fuck home," Jongdae mumbles, throwing the covers back and padding out of the bedroom and across the suite to the door. He does this as silently as his kind are known for, and takes a certain satisfaction in the detective’s pricked ears and elevated tail when he suddenly pulls open the door.

"Ah, good morning," Detective Kim starts, but quickly amends his words due to whatever he sees written on Jongdae’s face. "Or just 'morning.' I'm sorry to disturb you, but the DA will be visiting you and the revenant of Huang Zitao—"

"I'm not some kind of leftovers," Zitao huffs at Jongdae’s shoulder. "I'm still fully myself, just bodyless, you ableist dick."

"—in an hour and I wanted to offer you breakfast before—"

"He says that's offensive," Jongdae interrupts. 

Detective Kim’s ears swivel. "What, breakfast?"

"No, being called a revenant. He says he's still just Huang Zitao."

"Oh. Well, begging your pardon, Mr. Huang, but legal terminology is often very impersonal. And particularly in a case involving someone's death, there's a need to distinguish the deceased from, uh, their continued self. There’s no legal provision for someone to be both victim and witness of their own murder."

"Sounds like a 'you' problem," Zitao states, drifting back over to the still-playing television.

"He doesn't care," Jongdae translates, but he's cut off by the rumble of his stomach.

The detective obviously hears it, too, because his gaze drops to Jongdae’s abdomen, then slowly travels back up to Jongdae’s face in a way that makes him very conscious of the fact he's not wearing a shirt.

"Well. I will note his objection, but we'd better feed you in any case. And I've brought you a fresh outfit—if cats are as fastidious as the rumors say, I didn’t figure you'd be comfortable re-wearing yesterday's." The fox's absent smirk has returned. Jongdae definitely did not miss it.

"Fine, go fetch me some tuna rice balls like a good puppy while I put some damn clothes on," Jongdae sighs, accepting the pile of folded fabric.

Detective Kim’s tail wags once, and he's still wearing a smothered smirk as he gives Jongdae an exaggerated salute. Jongdae just curls a lip and closes the door in his stupid handsome face.

Zitao whistles from where he's hover-sitting on the sofa. "I think he likes you. If you're trying to 'get rid of tension,' you should definitely ask him to help."

"Shut up," Jongdae grumbles. "I won't  _ have _ any tension once this case is done and you've crossed over."

"What if I don't want to cross over?"

Jongdae shrugs, turning his back to dress himself. He's happy to see that the underwear and socks at least are still in sealed packages. He's less happy that the boxers have smiling kitty faces printed all over them, but at least they're clean.

The rest of the clothes smell clean, too, aside from the underlying scent of fox. It's too strong to have resulted merely from being delivered by one, leading Jongdae to suspect that the pressed khaki slacks and sober navy polo shirt came from Detective Kim’s own closet. 

It should be weird, but as Jongdae pulls the shirt over his head, he finds it embarrassingly comforting to be surrounded by the lingering vulpine musk. Everyone involved in this case knows Jongdae’s a cat, of course, but after spraying himself with scent-masking cologne every day since childhood, he'd feel entirely naked without the scent of fox.

He wonders if the perceptive detective did it on purpose, and he's torn between grudging gratitude and reflexive resentment. Part of him chafes at the overly familiar act of scent-sharing, generally only done by families or couples, perhaps really close friends. 

The only non-related person Jongdae’s ever shared scents with was Chanyeol, and that was mostly because Jongdae’s penchant for oversized hoodies combined with their habit of pooling laundry to save money at the laundromat meant that they drowsily grabbed each other's clothes half the time before their early-morning classes. Smelling like a husky overtop of his furtively-applied artificial musk only reinforced the canine olfactory impression Jongdae was going for, anyway, but it absolutely explains why, after having Jongdae’s cologne-impregnated clothes wrapped around him for years, Chanyeol would be more than able to draw a distinction between that scent and the one emitted by his actually vulpine lover. 

Of course not all foxes smell exactly the same, but Jongdae’s always known that his cologne, along with his ears, wouldn't stand up to side by side comparison. But foxes are uncommon enough and aloof enough that Jongdae’s always been able to keep his distance, trading nods across the street rather than running up to sniff noses like Chan had always done upon seeing another dog hybrid. That had been how they'd met in the first place, the big husky almost tackling Jongdae at freshman orientation. He'd been all apologies after Jongdae had emitted a well-practiced vulpine scream, offering to buy him lunch to atone for startling him. And for a belly full of barbecue, Jongdae had set himself up to be grumpily chewing his way through rice and tuna, dressed in a fox's clothes, while said fox wags his dumb bushy tail on the other side of the hotel suite's tiny breakfast table. 

It's all Jongdae can do not to scratch the detective’s smirking face. He'd be much less of a menace if he weren't so damn handsome. 

ʎ\෴/λ

The DA turns out to be far more menacing, a tiny woman with a gaze sharp enough that Jongdae’s half-convinced she can see Zitao herself. 

"But the deceased didn't see who stabbed him?" she presses after Zitao (and Jongdae) have relayed the tale of D&G's rights violations.

"Well, no, but—"

"I'm sorry, but my concern here is method, not motive. I can't bring charges based on spectral accusations—the law barely allows revenant testimony of their last moments. Established convention is that they're too disoriented to be at all reliable beyond that."

She turns to Detective Kim, standing quietly at her shoulder. "Find this Hun, get him to corroborate, file the initial testimony. Get me a witness that a jury can  _ see." _

"We're already on it, Ma'am."

"Of course you are." She turns back to Jongdae, glancing at his side where he'd told her Zitao was sitting. "It's not that I'm unsympathetic or disbelieving, but the law is very rigid. One case at a time, with documented investigation, producing evidence that the opposition can't simply claim is spurious or 'faith-based.'"

"Then why bother asking me at all?" Zitao huffs, ethereal arms folded over his chest.

"Revenant testimony is invaluable when it points investigators to physical evidence they may have otherwise not found," the DA says when Jongdae relays the question. "Or at least not found in as timely a manner. When it prompts them to more quickly develop a corporeal picture of what happened—to interview a certain suspect, to look in the trunk of a particular vehicle, to dig in a precise location instead of sending cadaver dogs all throughout a forest. The information presented here is all very concerning, and being connected with a high-profile murder case will certainly lend it weight. But I need earthly proof in order to bring karmic justice."

She offers an apologetic smile. "How much chaos would there be if we must seriously investigate anything that any cat hybrid reports a ghost tells them? Just as there are honest and deceptive people in all groups, there's sure to be someone who'd make false claims for whatever reason. Not that physical evidence is always infallible, but a jury will trust a DNA match over whispers in the wind every time, and my job is to bring cases to trial that can actually be won."

"They better find Hunie quick, anyway," Zitao grumbles. "I care less about the murder case than I do about him being safe—finding the killer won't change the fact that I'm dead."

Jongdae elects not to relay Zitao’s lack of investment in his own trial. Perhaps he's one of the deceptive cat hybrids, himself.

"Does this mean I can go home now?" he asks instead. 

"Unless the revenant of Huang Zitao crosses over, we need you available for potential further interviews."

Jongdae looks at the ghost beside him, lifting a brow in question.

Zitao shakes his see-through head. "Not until I know Hunie's safe."

Jongdae slumps in defeat. He's evidently not  _ that _ deceptive of a cat hybrid.

"Then can I at least be allowed to get my own clothes and things? How long do you plan to keep me here?"

"Trials can take several months, but we shouldn't need you on call the whole time, just during the evidence-gathering phase. We may have photo lineups for the deceased to evaluate, the defense attorney may have specific questions, we may uncover additional evidence at the club that may trigger a memory to resurface. It will likely be several weeks. But we certainly can send someone to retrieve your things, and we'll get you moved to a safe house under Detective Kim’s supervision. An officer will stay with you to ensure your safety while in protective custody."

Jongdae has the opportunity to practice his upgraded ear swivel. "Protective what now?"

The DA tilts her head at him. "Well, of course. If these alleged rights abuses are worth killing a beloved supermodel to conceal, it stands to reason that someone may attempt to eliminate one of the few people able to communicate with his revenant."

She smiles wryly at Jongdae’s dismay. "Just because I can't take spectral accusations to trial doesn't mean I don't take them seriously. You're performing an invaluable service to the department. It would be remiss if we allowed you to come to harm as a result."

_ Well, fuck, _ Jongdae thinks. But instead of expressing the sentiment aloud, he manages to smile politely and thank the DA for her consideration. What else can he do? He dislikes being kept on hand to interview the dead, but he likes even less the thought of ending up that way, himself.

ʎ\෴/λ

It's weird to see Detective Kim in plain clothes, suddenly looking like the kind of jogger, fit enough to be evident despite baggy track suit, that Jongdae would surreptitiously ogle when driving to an early job. He pushes down the pulse of interest, reminding his traitorous body that this guy's an ass and Jongdae can’t wait to be free of him.

The car he's ushered into seems completely ordinary, with no grate between the seats. Still, Detective Kim opens the rear door for him, and Jongdae doesn’t make a fuss about sitting in the back. It's not like he'd prefer to sit  _ next _ to the fox.

"Officer Lu has offered to stay with you," Detective Kim says on the drive to the safe house. "But I wanted to check with you, because if that makes you uncomfortable, we can assign you someone else."

Jongdae cocks his head at the amber eyes regarding him via the rear view mirror. "Why would it make me uncomfortable?"

"Well, he made some advances that seemed unwelcome, so I thought you may prefer someone else."

"Oh, I'm not gonna fuck him," Jongdae says. "I'm not  _ his _ toy any more than a human's. But he's not gonna make me uncomfortable by implying he'd be up for it, and I've seen that he's dedicated and good at his job, so." Jongdae shrugs. The set of the detective’s shoulders seems to indicate he's not completely at ease, but if Jongdae has to remain outside his own space and be subject to unexpected legal whims, he at least wants something to be even somewhat familiar instead of adjusting to a brand-new stranger. "Tell him to bring more ice cream."

"I had the freezer stocked already," Detective Kim says. "Pantry and fridge, too, since takeout is inadvisable. You can cook for yourself if you want, but Detective Do sent over a bunch of pre-made meals that are either ready to eat or just need a bit of heating. And if you really have a craving for delivery, Officer Lu can call it in to the station and an officer will bring it out to you."

"Cats aren’t  _ that _ high-maintenance," Jongdae huffs. "But fine, we'll sit around and watch TV or whatever, if that's what the department wants to keep paying me for."

"There's also some game systems, karaoke, a workout room, and a billiards table," Detective Kim reports. "We can't have you leaving the building, so again, if there's something you want, just ask, and we'll do our best to accommodate."

Jongdae snorts. "What I  _ want _ is for this case to be over already. So just keep working on that. Why are you playing chauffeur instead of tracking down suspects, anyway?"

Detective Kim flicks an ear. "Uh, well, I volunteered," he says, sounding almost apologetic about it. "But if you're comfortable with Officer Lu, he'll be your liaison with the department from now on."

Jongdae isn't sure why he's vaguely disappointed to hear this. Or rather, he  _ is _ sure why, but he refuses to acknowledge it.

"Oh. Well, sure, the rabbit's fine. But how long do you think it'll be?"

"Hopefully not long—we were able to log into Huang Zitao’s HushTalk account, but the contact he told us was this Hun hasn't been active since before the murder. The whole point of that app is that it's private, so we can't just subpoena the company for the associated contact information—users only have a username and password, no email or any other info is collected."

"Well, that's not much of a lead, then, is it?"

"It still is, because the content of their chats does include some potentially identifying information that corroborates what Mr. Huang told us: which university this Hun attends, his year, his roommate's major, even a professor's name. So we're closing in, it's just taking time to manually check all the potential matches, and that’s assuming he didn't obfuscate any of the information aside from his name."

"Isn't there some record from when he tried to report the weird messages, though? He'd have to give his name for that, right?"

Detective Kim shakes his head. "We're looking for that report, too, but it never got entered into the system. We don't know which station he reported it to, whether it was in person or over the phone, and he may have done it as an anonymous tip, which would definitely increase the chances it just got shoved in an archive drawer somewhere."

He pulls into a driveway, and Officer Lu steps off the porch to let Jongdae out of the car.

"We really are trying, Mr. Kim," the detective calls after him.

"I believe you," Jongdae calls back. What else can he say? At least the detective has the power to do  _ something.  _ All Jongdae is permitted to do is sit on his ass until his interviewing abilities are needed again. Or more specifically, until they're  _ not _ needed, and there's no reason anyone would try to kill him for having them. 

It felt good to help Zitao tell his story. But it doesn't really make up for the now-constant vague uneasiness of being potentially under threat. Jongdae’s glad he's only attracted to his own gender. It's the perfect excuse not to inflict this curse on another generation.

ʎ\෴/λ

Zitao makes it to the safe house just after dinner. 

"Man, why can't I just float faster?" He whines. "It's not like I get tired or anything, but it's just, like, moving through honey or something."

"I don't know why you keep asking me," Jongdae says, ignoring Officer Lu's double-take as he suddenly starts talking to the air. "I've spent all my life trying to avoid your kind, not study them."

"Don't lump me in with those freaks." Zitao tries to give Jongdae’s shoulder a shove, but that only results in both of them shivering and recoiling. "They're all gross with their bits hanging out. Nobody wants to see that."

"They usually don't know they’re dead, much less that their bits are hanging out," Jongdae laughs. "I'm still not sure why you aren't as vapor-headed as other ghosts—if a spirit lingers, it's generally because they can't accept their own demise. But you know you're dead, and you're still here and still lucid."

"That's because I'm not  _ done _ yet," Zitao huffs. "I may be dead, but I still have a lot of life to live."

"That's not usually how things work, but whatever," Jongdae chuckles. "If I'm stuck hanging out with a lingering spirit, I'm glad it's one like you instead of the poor old guy who was here when we arrived."

Zitao narrows his eyes at the oblivious Officer Lu. "You brought my Tiny to a safe house where someone died? Dude, that does  _ not _ convince me he'll actually be very safe here."

That had also been Jongdae’s initial thought, but the ghost had turned out to simply be the former owner, an elder who'd peacefully died in his sleep. Certainly not the typical conditions for a spirit to linger, but he'd evidently been waiting for his son to visit the next day. He'd wanted to tell him about a secret affair he'd had when the boy was young, resulting in a half-sibling his wife and son never knew about. He refused to go to the light until he told his son the truth, and asked Jongdae every few minutes when said son would arrive. With no ready way of contacting the son—not that Jongdae necessarily  _ would,  _ since such a confession would only cause hurt to the living, who probably believed the old man a devoted husband and father—eventually Jongdae brought Officer Lu upstairs, ears tucked beneath his patrol cap, to pretend to be the absent son. Jongdae relayed the confession, the officer reacted believably appropriately (since Jongdae hadn’t informed him what to expect) but eventually told the specter he forgave him. Relieved of guilt, the old man's spirit was able to move on, and peace was restored for Jongdae until his attached ghost managed to cross the city and find the safe house address.

"He died of old age," Jongdae reports, suppressing a smile at Zitao’s exaggerated relief. "And why do you keep calling me tiny? I'm perfectly average, thank you."

"'Cause you're my  _ official _ Tiny," Zitao sings. "The Chinese cop called you my 'officially designated medium,' except that's a silly designation when you’re obviously not  _ medium,  _ you're tiny!  _ My _ tiny."

"I am not—"

"Are, too! I've  _ designated  _ you. Congratulations!"

He beams so brightly at this, Jongdae’s half-surprised Officer Lu can't see it. Jongdae scowls in response. 

"You know, I was really looking forward to watching this movie, but the drama I'm only witnessing half of is still  _ way _ more interesting."

"Stuff it, cottontail," Jongdae growls, in no mood to be tag-teamed by smug fuckers whose pretty faces he can't punch.

"You're the one with a fluffy butt," Officer Lu says, still smirking as he turns back to the television. "But if you wanna play a game of pat-the-bunny, I'll pet it for you."

"I'll pass."

"Your loss."

"Oh, please," Zitao says, hovering closer to the officer to blow him a spectral raspberry. "You don't even like my Tiny, you're just being obnoxious because Super Fox-Dick likes him."

Jongdae almost chokes on the microwave popcorn Officer Lu had produced from the indeed well-stocked pantry. "Super what now?"

"You heard me. You like him, too, so you'd better not do any patting of the bunny. Your Fox-Dick would pretend to be okay with it, with some shit about you're allowed to do what you want as long as you don't leave the house, he's glad you have pleasurable company, blah, blah, blah. But he'd actually be super sad."

Jongdae thumps his chest until the offending kernel is coughed loose. "Okay, first, if you kill me, you'll have no one to talk to anymore, because hybrid spirits never linger," Jongdae rasps. "And secondly, you're jumping to an awful lot of unlikely conclusions."

"Am not. I've watched a million dramas, okay—I know tsundere bullshit when I see it."

Jongdae barks out a nicely-canine laugh. "How the fuck do you figure? I have zero interest in anyone here except in how they can get me home safely and quickly."

"Lies. You're lonely. You're lucky to at least have such a persistent friend." Zitao smiles smugly.

"That's one word for it," Jongdae mutters.

ʎ\෴/λ

Jongdae’s ears may be imitations when it comes to looks, but they're plenty real enough to overhear Officer Lu on the phone the next morning, making what sounds like an update report.

"Package intact. No. Yes. Yes. I can't answer that concretely, but off the record? Min, it's unnerving as fuck. He just growls or laughs suddenly out of nowhere, and then he argues with the air. I mean, I know it's not actually the air, but that's sure what it looks like. Of course I'm gonna do my job and stay right with him all the time, Min, I know my duty. But when I'm sitting there with one ear on him and the other on some action movie and he randomly says shit like, 'you deserve what you're about to get,' well, I mean. Is he talking to me? Himself? The revenant? The dude on the screen? I don't fucking know, and I feel like an idiot every time I ask."

There's a long sigh. "No, I know that's my own problem. No, of course I won't make him feel awkward. I just think we oughta raise his pay at least, it must be fucking hell to live like that all the time. No wonder he buggered off to fuck-all-nowhere mountain. Let's try not to force any other cats into this again. Yeah, I know. Just solve it quickly for us, MinMin. Bye."

Jongdae suddenly understands how skittery it is to hear half a conversation and be compelled to fill in the blanks. It's none of his business, and Officer Lu hadn't described anything that Detective Kim hadn’t already seen for himself. It's different in that Jongdae doesn’t usually relay what Zitao is saying, leaving the rabbit to wonder indefinitely. But he's not going to translate every random thing that Zitao says, he'd lose his voice after an hour. It's not like Jongdae can just ignore Zitao either—the former model is used to having lots of attention, and since he's not getting any from his FotoBook followers or anybody else anymore, Jongdae is the ghost’s only outlet.

If Jongdae has to deal with constant chatter, so does Officer Lu.

Today's topics include the best place to get hotpot in Seoul (Jongdae promises to try it when he's released from protective house arrest), the new fall line of Purrsace, (Jongdae has zero fashion opinions), and how to find your best selfie angle (a process that Officer Lu at least seems to find highly amusing instead of creepy). It probably is entertaining to watch Jongdae move around for better light, tilt his face various directions, take shot after shot and ask for ghostly approval before taking more. 

The following day, Zitao pesters Jongdae for hours until he asks Officer Lu if it's possible to get a particular brand of eyeliner, because "a cat should know how to get the perfect cat-eye." Jongdae’s efforts to point out that his eyes are "cat-eyes" by default were entirely ignored. Then Zitao wants to binge-watch all 48 episodes of some Chinese fantasy drama involving nine clans, some old mines, and somebody's dead wife. As he can't understand any of it, he takes the opportunity to give himself a thorough grooming session, hoping it will make him feel more centered and less like he wants to scratch the fuck out of the safe house's ugly wallpaper.

Though he indeed keeps one ear pointed at Jongdae like a furry compass needle, Officer Lu's eyes are glued to the screen along with Zitao’s, even offering commentary in Mandarin that Zitao answers in the same language. Jongdae couldn't relay the conversation even if he wanted to, but Zitao doesn't seem to mind, content to sigh and coo and tear up side by side with the bunny cop.

"Why can't  _ I  _ have that kind of relationship?" Zitao sniffles in Korean after yet another scene with a main character's dead wife.

Jongdae has no idea if she's supposed to be a ghost or a memory or what, but the scenes are all wistful and soft and she's translucent and there's hovery face-cupping that makes the pair of misty-eyed watchers sigh every time.

"Maybe you can," Jongdae answers. "Maybe that's what's on the other side—you get all the longings of your heart."

"But everyone would be a ghost. I don't want to date a ghost."

"Maybe everyone gets new bodies."

"You don't actually know that, though. Maybe we're all just gross goo until we're reincarnated or something." He turns back to the TV. "I think I'd rather stay here, even after the trial. Find a cat that isn't strung out or clearly in love with someone else."

Jongdae bites back the declaration that he's not in love with anyone. He doesn't want to get into another round of badgering about the subject, nor does he want to open himself up to romantic inquiries from a ghost by declaring himself unattached.

"I wish you the best of luck with that," he says instead, resuming his careful washing of his left ear.

He doesn't hear what Zitao says in response, because the doorbell rings.

"Saferoom," Officer Lu hisses, rising to his feet.

Jongdae’s already halfway down the hallway, heart in his throat. Damn that fox for literally dragging him into this— 

"It's only me," a familiar voice calls.

It's barely audible to Jongdae through the thick metal door, but of course the rabbit hears it perfectly. He bounds over to the door to undo all the deadbolts and chains that serve to make Jongdae feel locked  _ in _ even though he knows they're there to keep baddies locked out.

Eventually he pulls the door open enough to allow Detective Kim to slip inside with his armload of bags and boxes.

"Hello, Mr. Kim, Mr. Huang," the detective greets.

"Oh, I really like this guy," Zitao sings. "Tell him hi, and thanks for remembering me, and that he's really huggable looking in that squishy hoodie."

"I'm not telling him that," Jongdae says flatly, ignoring that it might be true. 

Detective Kim tilts his head, giving Jongdae an inquisitive look even as his ears perform what looks like a 360 degree radar sweep of the room, like that's actually gonna clue him in to Zitao’s half of the conversation. 

Jongdae sighs. "Zitao says hi, thanks for acknowledging him, and you look nice in that shirt."

"That is not what I said."

"Well, it's what I'm willing to say."

Detective Kim’s eyebrows go up. "Um, thank you?" He walks from the foyer to the kitchen to set his burdens down on the counter top. "Did you really ask for eyeliner, or is somebody in dispatch fucking with me?"

"He really asked for it," Officer Lu laughs as he finishes doing up all the locks once again. "I presume it has something to do with all the selfies he's been taking."

Detective Kim looks at Jongdae, amber eyes wide in alarm. "You're not posting anything online, are you?"

"Are you kidding? The last thing a cat wants is to draw attention to themselves. I don't even have any social media accounts." Jongdae has no one to be social with, anyway, except his parents, and they’re happy with a monthly phone call Jongdae hopes to be out of here on time to make.

"Then why…?" The detective pulls a makeup tube and a black pencil out of one of the bags.

_ "You _ try entertaining someone who doesn't need to sleep, pee, or even breathe between asking you to do things for his amusement," Jongdae huffs. "I can only say 'no' a couple thousand times before my sanity wears down to a nub."

"It's for your own good," Zitao scoffs over his shoulder. "You're gonna look amazing, and Super Fox-Dick will definitely wanna give you the D."

"I don't want the—" Jongdae closes teeth over tongue, glancing at the openly curious fox. "I just…" He sighs, unable to deal with detective questioning or ghostly pouting. "Fine, you can teach me how to use it later."

"And then you'll scream  _ my _ name in gratitude as you're getting railed," Zitao says, translucent eyes somehow both mischievous and smug.

"I'm not going to be screaming anyone's name." 

Both cops blink at him, ears pricking in unison.

Jongdae rolls his eyes and briefly buries his face in his hands. Then he straightens up, reminds himself that none of the four of them actually want to be here, doing this, and that none of the four of them really have much of a choice.

"Thanks for bringing all this by, Detective Kim," he says, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. The guy brought them a pizza, and Jongdae can smell anchovies. He can't muster up much resentment in the face of fish and cheese.

"You're very welcome, anything to keep our guests comfortable and entertained." Detective Kim’s eyes curve into little crescents and his tail wags more than a little. "But here, it's only  _ mister _ Kim. Or even better, just plain Minseok. You know, since we're just plain, ordinary guys eating pizza and watching the game."

Officer Lu's suddenly-rigid ears turn his widened eyes into exclamation points. "That's right—the game's tonight!" He scampers off to the living room, Zitao trailing behind him.

Jongdae wonders why, until Zitao turns his head unnaturally far to wink at Jongdae over his shoulder. 

Jongdae resists the urge to facepalm.

"So, you're staying for dinner, then?"

The detective looks a bit sheepish. "If that's okay. I'd say it would look the most natural to the neighbors, you know, a friend shows up in a football hoodie with pizza and snacks on game night, nothing noteworthy at all. But the truth is I just wanted to visit. Make sure you're doing okay. Under the circumstances, at least."

"It's fine," Jongdae sighs. "There are worse things than being a makeup dolly for a bossy ghost—why do you keep looking at my ears?" Jongdae swipes the backs of his hands over them, suddenly conscious of being interrupted mid-groom.

Amber eyes go wide. "Oh, nothing bad! Sorry for staring. It's just that you have little tufts at the tip now, and it's really, well. Cute." He's wincing as he says the last word. "Sorry. Super rude of me to even comment."

Jongdae shrugs, shoulders relaxing. "They're gonna get even longer unless I trim them back. It just seems pointless, since I'm not gonna see anyone who doesn't already know what I am, so." He swivels his ears back, then forward again. "Super weird to see them in the mirror. Haven't let them grow since I was about six."

For some reason, this brings a whiff of sorrow to the fox's spicy scent. The combination is achingly familiar—how often has Jongdae been maudlin enough to be able to smell something similar on himself?

More often than he'd care to remember. So he shoves it to the side and gives the fox a little smile.

"Anyway. Thanks for bringing pizza."

"Of course!" Detective Kim’s eyes curve again, tail swishing rhythmically behind him. "I, uh, brought you something else, too." 

He reaches into the same bag that held the eyeliner, pulling out a set of industrial ear defenders. "I don't know if this would actually work, but I thought, maybe, if you needed some quiet, these could help?"

Jongdae could kiss him.

He doesn't, because he can see Zitao’s otherworldly glimmer through the wall, and doesn't want to put more matchmaking ideas into his observer's translucent head. He does, however, give the detective a genuine smile.

"I have no idea if these will work, either, but I'm thrilled to have something to try."

It doesn't actually matter if they work or not, but Jongdae isn't going to voice his sudden idea where ghostly ears can hear. If Zitao  _ believes _ the ear defenders work, Jongdae can just ignore him when he's wearing them. He'll probably scream at first, but if Jongdae can manage to remain serene, maybe the ghost will learn it's useless to try.

Perhaps he is a deceptive cat hybrid, after all.

"I hope they help!" Detective Kim’s tail is a blur until he catches Jongdae’s eyes on it. The wag is immediately suppressed, but his eyes are still bright. 

Perhaps Chanyeol was right when he said all every canine guy really wants is to be told he's a good boy. Jongdae had argued—praise often feels patronizing to him. But he should evidently have just agreed, instead of giving his roommate another little clue that perhaps Jongdae wasn't as canine as he claimed.

The canine across from him looks a bit uncertain, now that his deliveries have been made. Cursing his well-mannered upbringing, Jongdae gives him another smile and gestures at the pair of pizza boxes. "Should we go fulfill the premise of your visit?"

Jongdae ignores the ghostly whisper of, "Nooooo, stay in there and enjoy your date!"

He also ignores the tiny little flip in his stomach at the way Detective Kim’s cheeks bunch up when he smiles. 

"If you really don't mind. This is essentially your territory now, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable by getting my scent everywhere."

Jongdae snorts. "If there's a scent I'm used to, it's male fox," he says. "It actually feels stranger to me to be in a place that smells so strongly of cat, nevermind that it's my own damn scent. And seriously, whatever species you were, it would still smell way better than wet rabbit."

Detective Kim actually laughs. "I lived with Lu for a while when we were rookies, and, yeah, him fresh out of the shower is a little much."

They gather the pizza and head into the living room. The veggie pizza goes on Officer Lu's end of the coffee table, the anchovies end up on Jongdae’s side, and Detective Kim sits in the middle of the sofa, where he can easily swipe slices from both boxes. His sly grin only grows cheekier at their affront.

"It's good to be an om-nom-nom-nivore," he declares.

Officer Lu shoots Jongdae a disgusted look. "Why did you let him in here? He just eats all the food and makes terrible jokes."

"You unlocked the door," Jongdae points out between bites, electing to protect his share of the pizza by depositing it inside his stomach.

"Yes, but  _ you  _ let him stay for dinner instead of just taking the goodies and tossing him back out on his tail."

"Will you quit bickering?" Zitao complains. "I'm trying to watch the game."

Jongdae scoffs. "Oh, you of all people don't get to complain about bickering. What's the matter—jealous that I'm arguing with someone that isn't you?"

"Yes," Detective Kim says, seeming to surprise himself as much as the other two hybrids. His ears slowly try to hide beneath his russet hair.

"Well, get in line," Jongdae says, ignoring both his own stupid flipping gut and the ghost crowing I-told-you-sos. "I'm going to start charging by the hour. Flat rate, 20,000 won, all-you-can-bicker with the surliest cat Seoul’s ever seen."

As if on cue, both law enforcement goons stand up to reach in back pockets for their wallets.

Jongdae rolls his eyes to a soundtrack of ghostly guffaws.

ʎ\෴/λ

Three days after their little pizza party, Officer Lu gets a call that makes his ears go straight out to the sides. They slowly sink as he uh-huhs into the phone, tips touching his shoulders by the time he hangs up.

He gives Jongdae a wry smile. "Well, the good news is that we've had a breakthrough in the case. The bad news is that the CI wants you at the scene."

"Shit."

"Yeah. So Minseok will be here in ten to take us over." He looks around. "Will Zitao come with us, or…?"

Jongdae shakes his head, tail tip twitching with apprehension. "Cars go right through him, and he can't move fast enough to keep up with one. But he wouldn't want to come, anyway. He's phobic of ghosts."

"That's…" Officer Lu blinks. 

"I'm not  _ afraid  _ of them!" Zitao protests. "They're just gross and creepy and I don't want them to touch me or come anywhere near me or even to have to look at them."

Jongdae shrugs. "Pretty sure that's the definition of 'phobic,' but okay."

"Oh, whatever," Zitao grumbles. "I'm more annoyed that these cops think they can just take  _ my _ Tiny and make him go cheat on me, without even asking me first."

"I'm not cheating on you," Jongdae says. "I'm not even  _ with  _ you."

"You are," Zitao insists. "My Tiny is all I have in the world."

Jongdae indulges in a brief facepalm. "I will be back as soon as they let me. It's not like I  _ want _ to talk to another ghost."

Zitao turns his back, but Jongdae can still hear spectral sniffles. He sighs, then grabs the remote for the entertainment center.

"Here—do you want me to set up that nine gates show again on autoplay, so you can cry about that instead of something neither of us can control?"

A pause in the sniffling. "…Yes."

Jongdae’s next sigh is in relief for once. He sets up the show, more relieved that Zitao drifts over to 'sit' on the sofa as the opening theme plays. He doesn’t even move when Jongdae calls out a goodbye. 

"Man," Officer Lu huffs as they get into the car with Detective Kim. "I've decided that I'm perfectly okay with only hearing half your cryptic conversations if it means I'm also spared from hearing a ghost cry."

"It's fucking heartbreaking," Jongdae grumbles. "A lot of them cry all the time. When I was a tiny kitten, too young to understand death, my dad says I used to try to hug them and make them feel better. He says once we saw a ghost crying and shivering on a bridge, all soaking wet, and I tried to give her my hot packs so her hands wouldn't be cold."

He sighs. "Poor Dad. I'd always start crying when I couldn't help, and then he'd either have to stop whatever we were supposed to be doing and try to get them to cross over, right then and there in front of everyone, becoming an awkward spectacle and dealing with strangers' nosy questions just so I wouldn't worry about them, or he'd have to carry his shrieking toddler away, kicking and screaming about how mean he was for not helping the 'sad lady.'"

"Yeah, okay," Detective Kim says. "I used to think it was such a shame that cat hybrids were slowly going extinct—everyone should feel able to live a full and dignified life without gross interference from others, regardless of species. That if we lost a whole type of hybrid because of fear of abuse, that was a failure on the part of us—law enforcement—to keep citizens safe. That we'd all suffer if we lost that piece of diversity."

He meets Jongdae’s gaze in the mirror, amber eyes to amber eyes, two sets of vertical pupils overlayed in the reflective glass. "But seriously, fuck that entitled bullshit. Raising a kitten sounds like a nightmare for parent  _ and _ child, even without humans being gross. I can't blame anyone for choosing to only have a child they knew would be spared that trauma."

"My mom grew up with a family of kittens next door," Officer Lu says. "They were a big family, she played with them all the time, and she didn't even know cats had the Sight until she'd grown up. Maybe their parents cleared all the ghosts away? Yifan grew up in a feral cat hybrid commune, and he said he'd never seen a ghost until he moved to the city. Maybe if cats were more common, you could help each other out, keep public spaces clear, so you'd each only encounter a fraction of the ghosts there are now and kittens could lead normal, atraumatic lives."

Jongdae snorts. "So the solution to kittenhood trauma is either no cats or lots of cats?"

They shrug. "'No more ghosts' seems far less likely, and after their history, no cat would volunteer for the kind of genetic research that might be able to spare future generations the Sight."

"If there were lots of cats, then the chances of police finding willing assistants—hell, even feline officers—might be high enough that unwilling consultants wouldn't be needed."

"Well, you're trying to convince the wrong tomcat," Jongdae laughs. "I'm way too gay to go out and sire a bunch of kittens for the sake of the world."

"Maybe you could give ghost-wrangling lessons instead," Detective Kim suggests. "Not that I have much basis for comparison, but you seem to be good at it—much more tolerant than I would be, anyway. Or you could just live your own life however you want—no one has the right to demand otherwise."

"Except the government," Jongdae huffs as they pull into the sketchiest looking warehouse district he's ever seen.

"Er, right," Detective Kim agrees, smile wry in the rear view mirror as the car glides to a stop. "Speaking of…" He gestures expansively.

Jongdae laughs. "Oh, you're going to have to be  _ way _ more specific than that, Detective. I'll be interviewing ghosts all night."

Both law enforcement goons turn to look at Jongdae through the grating separating their seats.

"All night? How many ghosts are there?"

Jongdae glances around. "Counting the ones scattered down the river? Probably eighty or so."

"Fuck." Detective Kim takes off his hat to run dull claws over his scalp. "Well, officially we've only brought you here to talk to one. You see, we finally tracked down Zitao’s Hun—Oh Sehun, sophomore at KNU."

Jongdae’s ears lift. "Oh? I bet that was a solid lead."

"Well, we don't actually know yet," Detective Kim sighs. "That's who we need you to interview."

ʎ\෴/λ

As Jongdae follows the law enforcement goons into—of course—the warehouse with the most tell-tale shimmers drifting around inside, the only thing running through his head is  _ what'll I tell Zitao?  _ Sure, he doesn’t love being an exorbitantly-paid ghost-sitter. Sure, he can't wait for this all to be over so he can go back to his mundane life. But that transparent brat has somehow wiggled under Jongdae’s skin, feels like his responsibility. Jongdae’s introverted, not heartless, and while Zitao may have been playing for drama at the time, he wasn't wrong when he'd said his only two-way connection of any kind is Jongdae.

And he said he wouldn't let go of that connection until he knew this Hun was safe. Does that mean Jongdae’s stuck with a ghost forever? 

Jongdae could always refuse to tell him how to find him when he finally goes home. Except that would be akin to abandoning a domestic dog on the side of the road, and again, Jongdae’s not heartless. He's just exhausted, and not looking forward to telling his ghostly cellmate his friend has passed on.

He's never seen the kid, but he knows immediately which of the lingering spirits is his. He's young and clean, for one thing, with trendy clothes and smart sneakers. For another, he heads directly towards Jongdae as soon as he enters the run-down building. 

"Thank goodness you're here," he says, handsome, translucent, face creased with concern. 

"Hi, Sehun," Jongdae greets, and has the distinct pleasure of surprising a ghost. 

"You know who I am?"

Jongdae nods. "These boys've been looking for you."

Sehun’s face crumples. "Yeah, well. If they'd have looked when I told 'em months ago, they could have saved themselves the trouble of finding me in pieces."

Jongdae looks up and down Sehun’s intact, incorporeal form.

He waves a hand. "They didn't actually mean to kill me. Probably wouldn't have, if they’d taken me to a hospital. Someone just hit me over the head too hard, did a little more than knock me out. I was sniffing around, taking photos, he musta crept up behind me like he was a cat himself. Never saw it coming—next thing I knew I was hearing the pug-faced brute panic on the phone to his daddy. I don't speak whatever Western language he was using, but 'papa' and 'morta' were clear enough—if he wasn't the one who hit me, he at least knows who did."

Jongdae nods, relaying his story to the detective behind him.

"Then what?" Jongdae prompts.

"Then… that guy left. Couple of goons showed up. Chopped me up, and your body dogs dug up what's left of my torso… well. Earlier. Time's a weird thing now. I know what order stuff happens, but it's harder to put a number on when." His face goes contemplative, but Jongdae’s is still stuck in a rictus from several sentences back

"So… you watched them cut up your body?"

Twin gasps from behind him accompany Sehun’s nod.

"That… was a bad time. I think… part of me still hoped I was just unconscious until they took my head off."

Jongdae elects not to relay that particular bit of heartbreak when he updates the cops.

"But I left stuff with Nini. Is that how you found me?"

"Nini?" Jongdae looks over at Detective Kim to see if the name means something to him.

"My roomie. Jonginnie."

"Jongin?" This time Detective Kim is nodding when Jongdae looks over.

"He's safe," the fox reports. "Broken up over losing you, of course. But safe, being very helpful to us, found all your notes and journals—you did good work. I'm only sorry we let you down when you tried to get the right people to do this job."

Sehun’s ghostly gaze is glued to the cracked cement of the warehouse floor. "Yeah, well. I'm not thrilled to be dead, but you’re here and I can tell you what I know and you can save a bunch of other lives—like the poor hybrids trapped in those shipping containers over there—so I suppose I can accept it."

Officer Lu literally jumps into action when Jongdae relays the ghost's response, calling a swarm of other officers to immediately begin busting open the indicated containers. Based on the drifting figures in the vicinity, it's far from the first time said containers had concealed a tragic cargo. 

"We will do our absolute utmost to find those responsible," Detective Kim says .

"Oh, no, that's not good enough," Sehun says, shaking his head. "I refuse to have died only for the baddies to get away. You owe me success."

As usual when confronted by surliness, Detective Kim laughs when Jongdae reports this. "Yeah, okay. We're never supposed to promise results, just effort, because that’s all we can really guarantee. But for you, Oh Sehun, I will promise justice."

Sehun's translucent face goes from stern to sweet at the unfurling of a smile, making him look achingly young. I'll take it," he says. "You better borrow Mister Foxybadge's notepad, or you're gonna lose your voice trying to tell him everything I'm about to give you."

Detective Kim, left unaware of his new nickname, is happy to lend his notepad again. So Jongdae has a ghost looming over one shoulder and a detective leaning against the other, so close their scents blend in a way Jongdae finds shamefully comforting. Sehun talks, Jongdae writes, Detective Kim reads, and to an unSighted onlooker, the entire thing would be happening in silence. 

Jongdae has a dozen pages of text and a hand cramp by the time Sehun stops talking. He hands the notepad and pencil back to Detective Kim, who smiles at Jongdae so broadly all his canines show.

"Thank you for relaying this," he says, tail wagging briskly. "And thank you, Mr. Oh, for lingering long enough to tell us all this."

"Yeah, well. Figured it was the least I could do, seeing how badly I fucked up my own investigation." Sehun swivels his handsome, translucent face to look over his broad ghostly shoulders. "Er… isn’t there like, some light or tunnel I'm supposed to go into now that my worldly burden is relieved or whatever?"

"I think the detectives may have more questions for you later?" Jongdae guesses, suspicion confirmed by the fox's nodding head.

"So… I'm just supposed to hang around for however long in this dump with all these Chinese migrants? My Mandarin isn't that good, I only started taking classes."

Jongdae winces. He's glad he's only here to talk to Sehun, because he'll be next to useless figuring out what these poor souls are doing here. "He says all the other ghosts are Chinese, so maybe you can get that Yifan cat to help you there, once he's detoxed enough to be a reliable interviewer."

Detective Kim sighs at Jongdae’s shoulder. "Too bad it takes ghosts so long to travel anywhere. We could forge more new ground and ask Huang Zitao to translate."

"Zitao?"

Jongdae winces again at the concern in Sehun’s demeanor. He knows he's going to regret this already, but even cats are susceptible to puppy eyes,  _ especially _ when delivered by sweet human college boys instead of dumb smirky foxes. "So, Sehun, how well do you know Seoul? If I gave you an address, do you think you could find it?"

Sehun cocks his head a little too far. "Probably… I mean, if I'm allowed to leave. Aren't ghosts supposed to haunt wherever they died? I wasn't exactly provided with a textbook for Ghosting 101 or anything…"

Jongdae would love a look at such a book, himself. "Turns out, they can go wherever they like, it just takes them a while to drift there. They just pass through any car that tries to take them."

"Ah, right. That's damn inconvenient. But I guess I won't get tired or hungry or care if it rains so, sure, I can head back into the city. Is there some sort of ghost waiting room the cops want us to stay in until the case is over, or something?"

"Or something," Jongdae agrees. "Tell him the safe house address, Detective. He can join the party."

"I'd rather not say it out loud, we have no idea if this place is bugged. I could write it on my tablet, then delete it—er, can ghosts read?"

Sehun gives Detective Kim a look that it's just as well he can't see. "I'm a fucking journalism student. Of course I can fucking read."

"He says yes," Jongdae elects to abbreviate.

"Ah, okay. Good. Er… Mr. Oh, if you'd just accompany me over away from the others—we take our consultant's safety very seriously, and if you can read it, I'd rather not take any chances on anyone else doing so. Mister Kim, are we clear?"

"The rest of them are mostly by the water or near the shipping containers," Jongdae reports. "Nobody—er. No  _ spirit _ is nearby except Sehun."

Detective Kim nods, flipping his tablet to the freewriting screen and scribbling down an address that Jongdae himself hadn't even seen before. It's much closer to the department headquarters than Jongdae would have guessed based on the length of the drive, but he supposes that's exactly the point.

Sehun hovers over the detective’s shoulder, nodding when he surreptitiously displays the tablet.

"I can find it. Is it actually a party, or is it just another boring warehouse?"

Jongdae huffs. "Oh, when you arrive, it'll be nothing short of a rave."

ʎ\෴/λ

Zitao  _ does _ rave when Sehun arrives, first shrieking in alarm at the presence of another spectral figure, then wailing like a banshee when he recognizes his internet friend. Sehun is upset, too, to find his idol deceased. Jongdae supposes in retrospect he shouldn't be too surprised—he's seen mothers carrying children and lovers holding hands—but the ghostly hugging that ensues is still vaguely jarring. He's never seen two ghosts interact that hadn't been killed together—or at least, he's always assumed that's what had happened to the pairs and trios he'd encountered in the past. But after the initial shock, Jongdae starts to feel something like satisfaction—Zitao has obviously been a bit affection-starved, based on his unsubtle attempts to convince Jongdae to get some action in his stead, and now he'll have someone he can interact with on his own level.

Foolishly, Jongdae assumes he himself will be less obliged to entertain the ghostly duo. Of course he's terribly wrong.

Two ghosts are somehow more than twice the work of one, especially as sweet Sehun turns out to have quite the mischievous streak. They both insist on following him everywhere, bedroom, bathroom, shower, one to ensure no ghosts try to talk to him in Jongdae’s absence and the other because "your grumpy face is really cute."

They never shut up, always talking about one thing or another, and aside from vague academic interest in the fact that, under Zitao’s coaching, Sehun’s Mandarin seems to improve even without a physical brain to learn with, Jongdae has zero interest in the running soundtrack. It follows him into his dreams, leading to Jongdae’s subconscious depicting a fashion runway show featuring rabbit hybrids in upsized doggy outfits, torsos barely covered, with lots of neck ruffles and goofy hoods and all their junk just hanging out in front for the world to see. A steady stream of ghostly commentary runs through the background as the semi-nude rabbits prance up and down the runway, and what makes Jongdae break into a cold sweat upon waking is that until he opened his eyes,  _ none of it even seemed weird. _

He endures more chatter as he showers and regretfully eats the last serving of Kyungsoo's delicious prawn chowder. And as soon as he hands his dish to Officer Lu to wash up, two pairs of translucent, pleading eyes have Jongdae pinned. They're pouting in unison, holding balled-up fists to their ethereally-sculpted cheekbones.

"Put karaoke on for us."

"And hold up our mics while we rap."

"The mics don't pick up your voices."

"Doesn't matter, rappers need mics."

"Yeah, for mic drops. You hafta drop them for us, too."

"I'm not dropping the mics. They'll break."

"Put the couch cushions on the floor,  _ then _ drop them. C'mon, work with us, here."

Jongdae rolls his eyes but does as bidden.

Officer Lu is incredibly amused to perch on the arm of the cushion-deprived sofa and watch Jongdae stand in the middle of the living room, both arms extended at a shoulder-punishing angle to accommodate a pair of lanky ghosts who tend to drift upward with excitement. Even to the rabbit's extra-sensitive ears, all he'd be able to hear is the backing track for popular rap songs, much duller than Jongdae’s own experience of the event. He bursts into applause when Jongdae dutifully drops the mics on the cushions at the end of the track.

"The audience roars! Put on another song!"

"Yeah, we can't disappoint our rabid fan."

"You mean rabbit fan."

"My arms are tired," Jongdae whines. 

Twin coos of condescension.

"At least you  _ have _ arms to get tired."

"Just call Foxydick to come rub your widdol shoulders."

"And rub your widdol—"

_ "Fine, _ I'll hold the damn mics again."

Jongdae rolls his eyes at the resulting ghostly cheers.

Officer Lu firmly moves himself into the unhatable category by offering to sing in between the ghostly raps, holding his own mic and giving Jongdae’s arms a break. The rabbit's voice is actually really nice, meaning Jongdae’s applause is genuine, as is the flirty praise he relays from Sehun and Zitao. 

"Whoa, boys, I'm on duty," Officer Lu laughs at the clinically-relayed pickup lines.

"Then why you always offering to seduce our Tiny?"

"He probably thinks it's part of being  _ on duty, _ you know, as our Tiny's bodyguard. He really wants to guard his body from up close."

"Then why is he turning  _ us _ down? The cops told us to stay at this safe house, too."

"It's obviously bodyless discrimination. Hey, you horny hare! You gotta guard us, too!"

"Bodyless rights!"

"Shit, Tiny's going for his earphones."

"Tiny, nooo! Put on another song, we want to rap some more and you don't want to deprive your ears of such glory."

After two hours, Jongdae’s ready to deprive his neck of his head. He's never been so glad to hear the door chime, happy to embrace whoever it is, medium assassin or not.

It's Detective Kim. Jongdae shrugs his aching shoulders and embraces him anyway.

The fox stiffens for half a heartbeat, then tentatively pats Jongdae’s back. "Everything all right?"

"I hate ghosts," Jongdae mumbles into the shoulder of yet another cuddly-boyfriend hoodie.

"Me, too!" comes a ghostly holler over the looping baseline of the VR rap track. "Are they making you talk to more?"

"What ghosts? Who's dead? Are you bringing them here, too?"

"He better fucking not bring any disgusting ghosts here."

"Yeah, only non-disgusting ghosts allowed."

_ "No _ ghosts, period."

"…I hate to tell you this, TaoTao, but—"

"I missed my entry on the last song? I know—I'll pay better attention this time."

"Okay, but—" 

"Yep, the detective definitely needs me to interview someone," Jongdae says, pulling his shoes on like they're asbestos and the floor is lava. "I'll probably be back late, don't wait up."

"We don't sleep, you dummy. We have no choice but to wait up."

The fox's burred tenor is a welcome change from aggressively shouted rap. "Actually, I came to tell you that we finally had enough to arrest and indict Doggé, his father, and all their problematic associates, so the judge finally agreed to release you to your known address. If you'll swear not to leave the surrounding county without notice until the case is concluded, of course, in the event that they have more questions for you. I can come back to get you in the morning, if you like, or wait while you pack if you'd rather leave now."

For a moment, there's blessed silence. Then the ghosts start up anew, wailing about abandonment and trying to batter the detective for 'taking away their Tiny.' The fox jumps when they touch him, arching his tail defensively.

"Whoa, what—are they mad at me or something?"

"Yep," Jongdae confirms as he trundles his suitcase down the hallway. "But they have each other now, so I don't fucking care. I am  _ done _ being a spectral childminder. Get me the hell out of here while I still have a shred of sanity left."

Detective Kim scrunches his forehead. "That's not all your stuff."

"Don't care." Jongdae had thrown whatever came to hand into his suitcase and is content to abandon whatever he didn't grab.

"Er, okay. You have to sign some paperwork—"

"In the car." Jongdae marches out the door without glancing around for snipers or anything, because he doesn't give a single fuck anymore. If he dies, he'll pass on right away like all hybrids do, and while he's not at all sure what awaits on the other side, he's damn sure what—or  _ who— _ absolutely  _ isn't _ there. 

"Do you want to stop for—"

"Nope." Jongdae shoves his suitcase into the back seat of the unmarked car in the driveway, then plunks his practically-vibrating tail down beside it before looking back at the bemused cops watching him from the porch. "Detective Kim, please take me the fuck home without further delay. Feel absolutely free to sing the entire way—your voice is pleasant enough, but it'll sound like an angelic choir in contrast to the nonstop chatter of the pair of spectral brats you left me with."

"Well. Okay. I mean, sure. I'll sing if you want."

Jongdae nods vigorously, emphatically gesturing the fox toward the empty driver's seat. The fox's smirk is an infinitely preferable sight for ghostly aegyo-scarred eyes.

ʎ\෴/λ

"So," Detective Kim says casually around his baked crab when they stop for lunch. "I don't get any days off when we're on a big case like this, but afterwards they give us each a couple weeks, you know, for fatigue and mental health and so on."

"Good for you." There's no scorn in Jongdae’s words, mostly because the crab is succulent and delicious and melting in Jongdae’s mouth. 

"So, when this trial is over, I was thinking of relaxing in a small, quiet town. Maybe in the mountains somewhere."

"Mmmh." Jongdae pokes another load of sweet, sweet seafood into his mouth. 

"So… do you happen to know of one? Any recommendations? Places I should steer clear of?"

The oblique questions finally penetrate Jongdae’s crab-induced haze. He looks up to see Detective Kim’s cheeks dusted a faint crabmeat pink as he pokes at his own portion.

"Are you asking me if you can visit after the trial?"

The detective nods, eyes still on his meal. 

"So you can brag to the bunny that you hit when he struck out?"

This brings the fox's gaze snapping up. "What? No, of course not. I mean, I know we didn't meet under the best of circumstances and this ordeal has been really stressful for you, but I thought I smelled…"

His eyes drop back to his plate. "It's fine if you're not actually interested. You're just really feisty and would probably be fun to date."

Jongdae snorts. "Is it actually dating if you'd only come around whenever you finish a case? What, three or four times a year or something?"

"More like six to eight. But you have internet out there, right? So there's video chatting and messaging and all. I just figured that, since cats and foxes are both pretty independent, maybe it would actually work a little better not to be in each other's space all the time. We'd appreciate seeing each other more when we could, and keep in touch comfortably when we'd be apart."

That actually sounds rather ideal to Jongdae—he just wants to be left alone to live his life, follow his own routine undisturbed, keep his stuff the way he wants it. Being solitary is predictable, comfortable,  _ safe. _ But Zitao was right about one thing—Jongdae can’t deny the loneliness that creeps in around the edges of his life, more persistent than the chattiest ghost.

This fox is ghost-level persistent, too. And smug. Obnoxious. Terrible sense of humor. But also… tolerant of Jongdae’s defensive nature. Considerate. Stupidly good-looking. And therefore, just maybe, tolerable, himself. If he shows up with fish in hand. And if Zitao’s right about a certain  _ other _ Fox-Dick prediction.

"You can visit," Jongdae says slowly, feeling like a prince with the power to set possibilities alight in those bright amber eyes. "But I'm not making any promises about anything else. I have a guest room, and you'll use it. No assumptions."

"No assumptions," Detective Kim agrees, smirk firmly in place, tail wagging steadily. "But plenty of hopes."

Jongdae shrugs, returning the bulk of his attention to his meal. "Your heartache if it doesn't work out."

But the fox only grins across the table at him. "And my elation if it does. Yours, too, if I have any say in it."

"Whatever," Jongdae mumbles at his crab.

Vulpine laughter is the soundtrack to his next delicious bite. 

ʎ\෴/λ

Jongdae hasn't even been home for a week when he finds someone waiting for him on his front porch, waving as he pulls his van into the drive.

Unfortunately, it's actually a pair of someones. Translucent someones, whose excited chatter is audible before he opens the door of the cab.

Jongdae sighs. Pocket rocket or not, the fox's invitation is revoked if he's the one who'd leaked Jongdae’s home address to the ghosts. 

But the chatter cuts off when Jongdae gets out of the van, and the ethereal pair are doing their best angel impressions as Jongdae steps warily onto the porch.

"The fuck are you here?" Jongdae’s not sure if he means  _ why _ or  _ how, _ but he's definitely sure he's about to be given answers to both (and more, besides).

"We missed you, of course!" 

Jongdae slumps against his front door with a wordless whine, thudding his forehead against the solid wooden surface.

"Aww, don't be like that!"

"Yeah, we know you missed us, too."

"It's pretty up here, but it's gotta be really boring without us."

"I  _ like _ boring!" Jongdae whines against the door. "I like peace and fucking  _ quiet!" _

"Yeah, we know. It was hard for you in the city."

"But out here, it's just us. And we'll be as quiet as the dead."

Jongdae does his best to slam his door in their obnoxious, translucent faces. Of course, they simply drift right through it.

"Wow,  _ rude." _

"Rude?  _ Rude _ is invading someone's goddamn home when they just want to be  _ left the fuck alone!" _

The pair of ghosts pause. They cock their heads in eerie unison. They turn to regard each other.

"Dude, he doesn’t seem very happy to see us."

"He is, though. It's just more of his tsundere bullshit."

"Still, though. Maybe we should give our Tiny some space."

"He's been all alone for… like, days! I think."

"I think cats like that, though."

"They do!" Jongdae confirms. "We're solitary. Not pack animals."

"Lions live in packs."

"I'm not a fucking lion."

"You sure roar a lot, though."

Jongdae covers his face with his hands, an action he immediately regrets, given his long day at work rewiring the heat lamps in a farmer's dusty chicken coop.

"I hate you," he hisses, grabbing a poor innocent dishtowel from the kitchen to wipe the grime from his eyes. "Please just go the fuck away."

"Dude, we made him cry."

"Tears of joy, from missing us so much."

"I'm not crying. I didn't miss you. This is an old-fashioned village—they still have a shaman. I will get her to exorcise the fuck out of you and happily go to jail for evidence tampering or whatever the fuck."

"We're not evidence! We're people, and we can do what we want."

"We don't want to be exorcised. Plus there's probably a lot of ghosts in jail. Gross, criminal ones. Surely we're way more fun to hang out with than they would be."

"I guarantee gross criminal ghosts wouldn't make me into a dress-up dolly or a microphone stand." Jongdae scowls down at his still-filthy hands. He just wants to take a shower, but there's no fucking way he's giving these invasive asshats a stripshow right now. 

"Nah, this is your house, though, bud. You can just build us a microphone stand and go about your working-man business."

"Yeah, you got shit to do. We don't begrudge you for literally keeping the lights on."

They snicker for a while at their little joke. Jongdae further insults the poor dishtowel by using it to wash his hands and arms at the kitchen sink.

"Dude, you act like we came all this way just to torment you or something, but we did really miss you."

"Yeah. We like you! Plus things get all… weird and floaty without our Tiny around. It was all we could do to find this place."

"We're not here to like, fuck up your life. We just wanna live ours."

"But we're dead, though."

"I'm not saying we wanna 'die our deaths.' Who the fuck would wanna do that? Once was more than enough."

"True. He's a clever kitty, I'm sure he knows what we mean."

Jongdae does know what they mean. And he supposes he gets it. Anyone would cling like a cat on a tree branch to whatever kept them feeling whole.

And Jongdae accepts that they're not tormenting him maliciously, not any more than Zitao’s little dog was maliciously making 'oopsies' on the rug. It just didn't compute in her tiny little head that it could possibly be objectionable—she was uncomfortable, she made herself comfortable again, and surely that was worth wagging her over-groomed tail about, right? 

But nobody wants to live with oopsie-landmines all over the floor. So Jongdae is just going to have to housebreak his unsolicited guests.

"Okay, fine, you can stay," he huffs.

The pair of ghostly faces light up so much Jongdae is surprised they're not actually glowing. 

_ "But," _ Jongdae continues, "we're gonna have to have some rules. I can and will live with ear defenders on forever if you don't cooperate. Do you think it'll make you start to feel weird and floaty again if your medium ignores you?"

"You're our Tiny."

"You can't ignore us."

"I can. I will. I have lots of practice ignoring ghosts."

"We're not—"

_ "Or _ 'lingering spirits.'" Jongdae rolls his eyes. "I just… I need some space, okay? I want to be able to shower alone. I want to be able to hear myself think. And you definitely can't follow me to work or anything—if you distract me and I fuck something up, you'll either end up with ghostly company when some poor family's house burns down or  _ no _ company when I fry myself."

The pair look suitably horrified at either prospect.

"Right. So. Just… tone it down a bit. Entertain yourselves. I know time is a weird concept for you, so I'll get an automatic calendar for the wall. You can check it to see what day it is—if it's a weekend, I'll have time to hang out with you. But on weekdays, Daddy's working, okay? Even if I'm home, you gotta give me space."

The pair of malice-less miscreants have been nodding along like a pair of bobbleheads, trading wicked smiles at the last bit.

"Sure, Tiny. But we didn't know you had a Daddy kink."

"I don't," Jongdae asserts. "But if you act like a pair of overgrown schoolboys, that’s how I'm gonna treat you."

They look at each other, then shrug.

"Okay, Tiny. Or do you want us to call you Daddy, now?"

Jongdae grits his teeth. "What's wrong with using my actual name?"

"Let's stick with Tiny."

"Yeah, it really suits him."

"Plus I like the face he makes more than the one when we call him Daddy."

"Me, too."

Jongdae takes it all back. These ghostly brats are definitely making 'oopsies' on purpose.

"What day is it today, Tiny?"

"Tuesday."

"That's a weekday."

"So… we'll go explore this cute little town!"

"Ooh, yeah!"

The pair drifts off, turning over-far to smirk over their shoulders.

"Enjoy your  _ long shower, _ Tiny!"

"He's not actually tiny  _ there, _ though."

"Which his foxy little  _ boyfriend  _ will probably enjoy."

"If he doesn't get ripped to shreds—seriously, what the hell is up with the spikes?"

"I mean, if cat hybrids were invented as fucktoys, they're probably fun, right?"

"Oh, you think so? I guess we'll have to wait for Foxybritches to visit."

"When will that be?"

"I dunno. I don't even know what day it is on my own."

"We'll make him put it on the calendar for us."

Jongdae drops his head to his now-clean hands, suddenly glad Detective Kim’s visits will be on an unpredictable basis and choosing not to think about how they even know about that in the first damn place.

ʎ\෴/λ

It turns out that Detective Kim—Jongdae should probably get used to thinking of him as just  _ Minseok _ now that their relationship is supposed to be a more personal one—is considerate enough to call before he shows up, unlike  _ some _ visitors. They’ve only exchanged a few semi-awkward texts since agreeing to meet, and Jongdae is suddenly stricken with the thought that having a guy he barely knows in his space will be just as awkward. He can at least reassure himself that Minseok would actually leave if Jongdae asked him to, again, unlike  _ some _ visitors. 

But those visitors—housemates, really, at this point—have actually settled into mostly-tolerable companionship. Jongdae’s gotten used to the background noise of the television, which he'd managed to program to switch channels by itself to match the ghosts' preferred viewing schedule. He's even gotten caught up in one of the dramas himself, a pseudo-historical, high-adventure, demon-summoning, sword-fighting fantasy with two attractive male leads that, in Zitao’s emphatic words, should 'really, just fucking kiss already.'

Jongdae did also get a dual mic stand, and made the ethereal rappers dictate a playlist he could save and then auto-play for them instead of having to select each track manually every time. Some of the songs are really catchy—he'd never heard of this Kris Wu guy before, but Jongdae’s accidentally improving his Mandarin along with Sehun, finding himself mumbling lines as he washes dishes or drives to job sites. Zitao is always crowingly thrilled whenever he catches Jongdae at it. 

And, if he were made to swear in front of a judge, Jongdae would have to admit that it's nice to come home to a house that isn't precisely empty anymore. That having someone to stream cheesy movies with is enjoyable, particularly as they don't hog the popcorn. That being able to vent about Mrs. Choi's obnoxiously-untrained terrier is more satisfying when it induces a chorus of indignant invectives that echo Jongdae’s own resentment at being subjected to surprise-humping whenever he'd crouched to reach the ancient wiring beneath her back deck. That shopping online for even something as simple as new coveralls—the village isn't big enough to have any hybrid-friendly shops, and Jongdae had learned the hard way what happens when one adds home-made tail-holes to one-piece garments one must repeatedly bend and crouch in—is more fun when he has his own personal fashion consultants to help him choose styles and colors that don't make him look sick or sloppy.

So Jongdae does inform his incorporeal housemates that 'Foxybritches' will be arriving that weekend, because while he's feeling a bit unsure, he knows they will be nothing but excited. The resultant smirky teasing is more than a little obnoxious, but it also serves to buoy his own anticipation. By the time Minseok shows up on his doorstep, Jongdae’s ears are so clean from his attempts at self-calming that, if he  _ had _ actually dyed them, it would have been entirely groomed away.

His ears are one of the first things the fox on his porch looks at when Jongdae opens the door.

"Ah, no more cute tufts—too bad, but understandable."

"Yeah, well, sacrifices must be made for anonymity."

"Indeed. But not sacrifices of diet, thanks to your personal delivery boy." Minseok holds up a takeout bag that wafts the delicious aroma of haddock into the house.

Jongdae can’t help but snort at the fox's big-eyed expression of appeal. "I'd have let you in even without fishy bribery, you know." He accepts the still-warm bag, then holds the door wide to admit Minseok and his rolling luggage. 

Minseok shrugs as he steps into the kitchen. "Why take the chance? Besides, you're really cute when you're enjoying food you love."

Jongdae has no ready response except the heat in his cheeks. "Yeah. Well. The guest room's the first door on the right, and the bathroom's right across the hall."

Minseok nods his thanks, heading off to get settled while Jongdae serves out the seafood to a soundtrack of ghostly catcalls.

"Ooh, actual plates—it's definitely a date."

"Of course it's a date."

"But our Tiny sent Foxybritches to the guest room."

"Because it's their  _ first _ date—what kind of a hussy do you think our Tiny is?"

"Uhhh, he's a tomcat? As in, 'horny as a tomcat in rut?'"

"He's not in rut, though. I think that's in the spring, and the calendar says it's October."

"Oh, right. Then our Tiny can be a restrained, respectable tomcat."

There's a pause, then gales of ghostly laughter, as if the very idea is ridiculous.

Jongdae just rolls his eyes and sets the meal on his well-worn breakfast table. He frowns down at the mis-matched china and the uneven wood. He does well enough for himself as an electrician—and the consultancy fee from the Seoul PD certainly padded his bank account—but he'd never had reason to make his home more than simply functional. Is this city fox going to sneer at Jongdae’s provincial lifestyle? Does Jongdae care if he does?

"Mmm, what a homey welcome."

Jongdae looks up to find no trace of sarcasm in Minseok’s smile.

"Er, of course. Please, sit and enjoy."

"I will, but of course mostly for the company. I can have a nice meal anytime, it's you I find so appealing."

Jongdae's fluster bursts out of him as laughter. "Wow, I see the gloves are entirely off now that you're no longer playing the professional."

"Hey, if I only have a dozen days to court you for the next six or eight weeks, I gotta pack in as much wooing as I can."

"And that means all the cheese?"

"Don't cats like cheese?"

Jongdae shrugs, taking his own seat across from the smirking fox. "This cat could get used to cheese. It's certainly not the worst thing I've had to learn to tolerate since my impromptu trip to Seoul."

Jongdae hadn’t known it was possible for someone to look both guilty and pleased. It apparently involves a lot of ear flipping and tail quivering.

"Ah, so… they found you, then?"

"Unfortunately."

When Jongdae doesn’t say anything else, Minseok’s ears cautiously lift.

"You don't smell all that unhappy about it."

"I guess I've adjusted to having them around."

Minseok's shoulders lower as he straightens up. "Ah, good. I mean, I'd apologize for sending them after you, except it wasn't actually  _ me— _ Lu Han got tired of me jumping around and shivering all the time after about two days and drew them a map so they'd go off and leave me alone."

Jongdae elects to cover his gape by sticking a piece of haddock into his mouth.

"That's… wow," he says after he chews and swallows. He lifts his gaze over Minseok’s shoulder, where two translucent devils are looking entirely unrepentant. 

"He took you away from us."

"Yeah, nobody steals our Tiny."

"If he hadn’t done it, I'd have called a cab or something. It's unfair to punish someone else for a choice I made."

Jongdae doesn’t think he'll ever quite get used to the unnerving way the ghosts seem to synchronize movements, as demonstrated currently by a dual careless shrug.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, we got you back and we'd do it again."

Jongdae sighs, looking back at the fox smiling wryly at him. "I feel obligated to apologize."

Minseok’s careless shrug is eerily similar to what the ghosts just gave him. "It's enough that you don’t hate me for it."

"It wasn't your fault. My resentment is directed entirely at the rabbit." Jongdae's not going to admit out loud that his resentment isn't even very strong, because the last thing his presumptuous housemates need is to infer that Jongdae  _ likes _ having them around. He'd have zero peace ever again. 

"Ah, well, that's okay then." Minseok’s smirk is fully restored. He turns over his shoulder, having seen the direction of Jongdae’s chiding glare. "Er, you post-living gentlemen may be pleased to know that D&G is now just 'Gabbana Fashions' since Doggé and his dad are facing jail time on a multitude of convictions. They have fancy lawyers so I doubt they'll see the inside of a cell, but they've lost their brand, at least. And Mr. Gabbana—and his Italian greyhound hybrid wife—have been very vocal about their new charitable foundation, dedicated to rescuing, educating, and/or repatriating trafficked and exploited hybrids."

The exuberant ghostly response to this news leaves Minseok and Jongdae shivering, slurping gratefully at their warm soup.

When the food is gone, Jongdae shoos Minseok into the living room so he can clean up (and deliver a hissing lecture on appropriate ghostly behavior when company is present).

"Foxybritches knows we're here, we don't have to hide from him."

"Yeah, he likes us. He's always polite to us, unlike the guy who called us 'needy see-through babies' when he got out of the shower last time."

"That was actually three showers ago, and you were perched on the bathroom sink like a pair of invasive gargoyles!"

"We weren't invasive. We didn't poke our heads through the curtain or anything."

"Even though you were moaning in there like you were being slowly murdered."

There follows a frankly insulting imitation of the sounds Jongdae was supposedly making, including a high, breathy, "Oh, sexy Foxybritches, take me  _ now!" _ that Jongdae absolutely hadn't uttered.

"I hate both of you," Jongdae hisses, then stalks into the living room, full of tasty fish and a determination to ignore any non-corporeal occupants of his home for the next few hours, weekend or not.

Minseok, looking ultra-cozy in yet another oversized jumper, is settled on Jongdae's sofa, eliciting echoes of their pizza night with Lu Han at the safe house. As he was then, Minseok is sitting in the center of the couch, sprawling to stretch his arms along the back, tail thumping against the upholstery twice before curving over a knee. He tilts his head, one ear flicking as he smothers a cheeky smile. 

As seems usual for most of their prior interactions, Minseok looks as though he expects to be hissed at. But contrary to usual, he seems to be looking forward to it. 

But Jongdae has done enough hissing for one night, so he doesn’t fuss at Minseok to scoot over and share the sofa. He just saunters over to sit right next to him, squeezing into the fox's space to slouch against him, his back curved into Minseok’s ribs. He can't see Minseok’s surprise from this position, but he can certainly smell it, along with the warm pulse of satisfaction carried in his next lungful of spicy vulpine musk. 

He may not always wear it himself anymore, but it will forever be a scent Jongdae associates with security, the knowledge that he's safe from invasive requests from strangers. And though he's mostly trained himself to resist such feline urges, Jongdae’s still drawn to warmth. Curling up against the fox’s fleecy torso is worth the potentially-invasive questions from a too-handsome detective.

But foxes can be surprising, too. Minseok says nothing in response, just churrs happily, dropping an arm from the backrest to curl it around Jongdae's middle. Jongdae relaxes into the embrace, unable to resist purring a little when Minseok snuffles at his ears, giving one a quick swipe of a smooth canine tongue. 

"Mmm. What a nice little rumble," Minseok murmurs against Jongdae’s hair. Jongdae can hear Minseok’s tail gently thumping against the sofa, a slow and steady rhythm to match the rhythm of Jongdae’s contentment-riffled breathing.

"Just put the movie on," Jongdae instructs, voice distorted by his continuing purrs.

Minseok obeys, but neither of them are actually paying much attention to what's happening on the screen. Minseok’s not even looking—his face is buried in Jongdae's hair, nuzzling at his scalp, inhaling slowly and deeply between tiny nibbles and licks. Jongdae’s eyes are fixed on the television, but between the gentle ruffling of his hair around his ears and his increasingly-throaty purring, Jongdae can’t make out enough dialogue to follow the storyline.

"This is absolutely the cutest thing I've ever seen."

"Shh! They're, like, Schrodinger's foxes—if they know we're observing them, they'll stop."

"One of them isn't a real fox, though."

"Which is why you have to shut your big see-through mouth before the fake fox hears us."

"He already hears us. That's his, 'nope, definitely no ethereal hotties watching me right now' face."

"How can you tell? He just looks drowsy to me."

"It's in the set of his jaw—I saw it all the time in the city when he was showering."

"You actually watched him shower in the city? Like, behind the curtain with him?"

"Well, I certainly wasn't waiting outside until he was done! There might have been a  _ ghost _ nearby."

"…TaoTao, you do know that both of us are—"

"Incredibly handsome men, yes, I do know."

"That's not… wrong. Sure, let's just go with that."

Jongdae lets his eyes fall closed and makes a deliberate effort to relax his jaw.

ʎ\෴/λ

Audience or not, there's a ridiculous amount of cuddling over the next few days. It's all but inevitable when the following morning dawns gray and misty, the scent of thunder lurking at the edges of every gust of wind. All Jongdae wants to do is curl up beneath his blankets and burrow down for the day, but he has a guest to feed and entertain.

Luckily for Jongdae, that guest seems keen to court him in the universal way of predator hybrids: by hunting up food for him. So when Jongdae pulls open the door of his bedroom, it's to the scent of simmering seafood stew.

And to the sound of the fox murmuring over the stove, evenly spaced words that turn out to be the names of Jongdae’s invisible roommates. 

"Zitao. Sehun. Sehun again. Zitao."

As Jongdae shuffles into the kitchen, he can only blink groggily at the cluster of beings around his stove. Minseok has a hip against the adjacent counter, hair and fur still shower-damp, dressed in one of Jongdae’s oversized sweaters, languidly stirring the delicious-smelling pot. The pair of 'ethereal hotties' are behind him, running their fingers over—through? The back of Minseok’s neck.

"What the early-morning fuckery?"

Minseok’s left ear had been swiveled toward Jongdae from the moment he padded around the corner, but now the rest of his gorgeous face turns to match. He shrugs, giving Jongdae a little smile. 

"I'm guessing which of them is touching me. It seems to amuse them, which I thought might keep them from waking their usual favorite source of entertainment."

Jongdae frowns, flicking an ear. "How do you know if you're right?"

"I don't, but it doesn't seem to matter. They keep doing it, anyway."

"Mmm." Jongdae shuffles closer, letting his tail lift behind him to curve over his shoulder as he curves himself over Minseok’s, hissing softly at the next set of ghostly fingers to approach the fox's neck. He sniffs at the stew, giving his tail a swish when he identifies prawns in the pot—prawns that definitely hadn't been in Jongdae’s fridge when he'd gone to bed the night before. 

"You walked all the way into town? In this murk?"

"Morning jog with a motivational end goal," Minseok chuckles.

"Well. Such dedication to food and fitness is impressive."

Minseok’s tail wags softly against Jongdae’s knees. "Impressive enough to be rewarded?"

"Maybe," Jongdae says, his aloof tone undermined entirely by the beginnings of a purr, "if what you want as a reward is a belly full of stew and to be napped against."

Minseok’s tail wags faster. "That does sound very rewarding."

Minseok does indeed seem entirely content with that. This time, Jongdae pushes him down to lie full-length against the back of the sofa and drapes the fuzzy yellow couch blanket over him. Then Jongdae tucks himself beneath the blanket as well, scent-marking Minseok’s shoulder before pillowing his cheek against it, nose pressed to the warm wool encasing the fox’s firm chest. He hasn't scent-marked anything in probably two decades—while foxes do actually scent-mark with their jawlines as cats do, the gesture is universally considered very feline, so Jongdae had elected to avoid it rather than give out defensive-sounding lectures on vulpine behavior. He doesn't consciously intend to scent-mark now, but the dumb smirky fox somehow tugs on all of Jongdae’s deepest, most buried instincts, ignites urges he'd long suppressed.

Minseok may be doing an excellent job of suppressing his own urges, but he can't suppress the whiff of interest curling through his delight. So even though he just wraps a fluffy tail over his hip and a warm arm around Jongdae's waist, only nuzzles gently at Jongdae’s hair, behaves as if he’d be perfectly satisfied simply donating his body heat to a drowsy cat—maybe  _ because _ that's all Minseok acts like he wants—Jongdae can’t help but imagine more.

As Officer Lu had pointed out all those weeks ago, Jongdae would have nothing to hide from someone who already knows his secrets. And Minseok, for all his obnoxious lines, for all his insistence that Jongdae cooperate with the investigation he'd tracked him down for, has never  _ personally _ asked for anything, instead being openly delighted with whatever Jongdae chooses to give.

Freed from the constraints of a professional relationship, Minseok is making it very clear that he'd welcome a much more personal one. But he's making it equally clear that it's an offer rather than a demand. And like any cat, Jongdae runs if he's chased, fights if he's cornered. Yet a steady, open offer of food and affection is more than the most hardened street cat can resist, given enough time.

Minseok seems ready to give Jongdae all the time in the world, but Jongdae’s waited all his life already. 

Sure, there's a cynical whisper in his head that this is all an elaborate trap, that Minseok’s department has sent him to woo them a tame little medium, that by ensnaring Jongdae by the heart the detective could wield him against any murder case, that he may even want Jongdae to coax Zitao and Sehun into becoming spectral snitches, able to walk through walls and hear and see what criminals would rather keep hidden. That once again, Jongdae is just something to be used, with the added bonus of his ass along with his eyes. But Jongdae can’t truly bring himself to believe that, because Minseok himself doesn't.

He always smells entirely sincere, and while someone may mask their overall scent, it's not possible to manufacture the chemical signals of varying emotions on the fly, not possible to simply act happy and also smell happy unless one actually  _ is _ happy. Hybrids  _ can _ lie to each other, but generally about the reasons for their feelings, not the feelings themselves.

So for that dark whisper to be correct, it would have to be someone higher up the chain that had sent Minseok to court Jongdae, someone who'd somehow convinced him to do so while making Minseok think it his own desire. Who'd have to completely avoid mentioning how the relationship could be used by the department, and who'd have to do all this without smelling of subterfuge themselves. 

Minseok’s canine nose is better than Jongdae’s feline one, and he's a trained investigator. He's also a fox, as shrewd as they come. He's proven nearly impossible to deceive, and yet his scent is always fresh and earnest, flavored with contentment, affection, and desire. He smells genuinely happy to be here, squished against an aging sofa with a guy his own size using him for a self-warming body pillow. He acts hopeful but not entitled, patient but not disinterested, and Jongdae can’t actually convince himself things aren't as they seem.

Nor does he particularly want to.

For the first time since kittenhood, Jongdae lets go. For the next several days, he lets himself just  _ be, _ lets heart override head, lets himself take and take and take all the easy affection Minseok offers.

He doesn't hold himself back from returning it, either, gathering Minseok’s resulting delight like warm cotton against his heart. He grooms Minseok’s ears, drunk on the heady pheromones they’re both producing, reeking of cozy adoration. He pulls Minseok into his bed, spending the night draped over his fox's eagerly pliant form, fully clothed and fully expecting to remain that way.

And the following morning, when the fox tries to pull away for his habitual jog, Jongdae clings even though Minseok pouts.

"No leaving," he mumbles. 

"I'll be back soon," Minseok wheedles. "And I'll bring you an extra-milky latte."

"You better be back soon, because I like you a latte."

Minseok’s surprise-parted lips are just too appealing at that, so Jongdae kisses him.

There's a moment where Jongdae may as well be kissing warm rubber, then Minseok’s mouth comes entirely to life.

"Hunie! They're finally kissing! Quit ogling the neighbor's woolly rat and come see  _ this!" _

"Monseur is a French poodle, not a woolly rat, and he's adorable—aww, but so are these two fluffy beasts. It's about freaking time, isn't it?"

"I thought I would shrivel away and become a goddamn ghost before they finally locked lips."

"…TaoTao, you know you’re—"

"Way more kissable than either of them? Yeah. You wanna give it a go?"

"You know what? Sure. Why not?"

The sounds of ghostly kissing are weird. Jongdae ignores them in favor of devouring Minseok’s sweet smile. Minseok pulls Jongdae closer and responds even more eagerly, a whine building in the back of his throat.

"Now, Dae? You really kiss me  _ now, _ when I'm supposed to drag myself from our nice warm den and go jog in the cold gray drizzle?"

"You better hurry up," Jongdae pronounces, shoving at his chest. "I was promised extra-milky coffee, and I'm not a patient man."

"Liar," Minseok laughs. "You have more patience than I do if you haven't re-murdered your pair of invisible friends."

"Ugh, too much effort." Jongdae burrows back into the blankets. "Would be even worse than  _ running  _ for  _ fun." _

Minseok’s chuckle lulls Jongdae back into a doze.

ʎ\෴/λ

Now that Relationship Level: Kissing has been unlocked, Jongdae’s flirtatious fox finds every excuse to exercise the new privilege. They end up with slightly overcooked dinners and repeatedly-rewound movie scenes, customer phone calls go to voicemail, and Minseok misses a few morning runs entirely, much to Jongdae’s smug satisfaction. 

But there are only a pair of nights left before Minseok has to return to Seoul, and Jongdae intends to get even more satisfaction before he leaves. So when their post-dinner makeout session starts to get heated, Jongdae feeds into it instead of pulling away.

He tugs at the hemline of Minseok’s hoodie, enjoying the way the fox’s wide-eyed surprise melts into searing desire.

"Really, Dae?" he asks as he surrenders the garment. "How far are we going?"

"All the way." Jongdae shucks his own shirt like a well-steamed oyster. "Min, I want you."

"Oh, Dae." Minseok’s hands are warm over Jongdae’s exposed skin. "You can absolutely have me."

Jongdae’s world becomes a blur of reverent hands and eager lips until he can no longer ignore the whispers from the peanut gallery.

"Min, the ghosts."

Minseok doesn't even pause in the line of kisses he's leaving along Jongdae’s collarbone. "What about them?" he murmurs before claiming Jongdae’s lips again. 

"They're watching," Jongdae steals breath enough to whine.

Minseok only shrugs. "The only eyes I care about right now are yours."

"That's only because you can't hear them or see the faces they're making," Jongdae whines.

"Just focus on me, Dae," Minseok mouths against Jongdae’s lips.

"They're giving us scores out of ten for kissing technique," Jongdae presses.

Minseok laughs. "How are we doing?"

"You're doing great, of course," Jongdae grumbles, pushing away to glare at the snickering translucent miscreants. "Evidently I could be doing better."

"You just need more practice," Minseok rumbles, reaching to pull Jongdae against him again. "Come back and I'll give you plenty."

Minseok's eager mouth is very persuasive. Jongdae tries to get lost in the thrill of it, tries to focus only on the handsome man in his arms.

"Ooh, that was a good one, our Tiny got Foxybritches to moan."

"Yeah, but look how he's humping Foxy's lovely hip, he's definitely more affected."

"Of course he is, poor guy is cuddle-starved, I have no idea how he's even still alive."

"Do you think he'll last until one of them gets their dick in the other? Or even out of their pants?"

"Ooh, should we have a little bet?"

"Well, we can't really reward each other very well like this. No food, clothes, and  _ we  _ certainly aren't cuddle-starved."

"Plus cuddling is a reward for both of us. What about forfeits?"

"Like what? We can't hurt each other."

"Hmm… Oh! The loser has to stick his head through the side of the toilet bowl face-up, the next time one of them takes a—" 

"Okay!" Jongdae almost shouts as he breaks away from the kiss. "We're going to a B&B, Min, come on."

Minseok whines when Jongdae pulls away, but obligingly pulls his shirt back on and grabs his toothbrush. Ghostly snickering chases the pair of them from the house.

ʎ\෴/λ

The B&B is very romantic, but it's twice as satisfying for Jongdae to devour Minseok’s moans in his own bed, filling the room with the scent of sated fox that will linger even after Minseok’s departure the next morning. And Minseok's moans were the only ones Jongdae needed to concern himself with, having bought privacy with the threat of never playing the end of that sword-fighting drama the ghosts are currently obsessed with. With their nebulous sense of time, Jongdae can’t be sure whether they'll drift home again in an hour or a day. So he's made excellent use of their temporary solitude, leaving both of them drowsing against each other in the afterglow. 

"I'm gonna miss you, Dae," Minseok sighs, rubbing his cheek against the top of Jongdae’s head.

It soothes a little of the upcoming ache for Jongdae to be scent-marked like that, but he still pouts into their next kiss. He likes being independent, but as the weather grows colder, with this fresh experience of warmth, the shine has worn off of solitude.

"You'd better miss me," he huffs against Minseok’s bare shoulder. "You're not allowed to replace me with some city boy while you're gone."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. Having a contented kitty purring on my chest has completely ruined me for dating anyone else."

"Good," Jongdae mumbles through sleepy purrs, tightening his fingers around Minseok's delicious delts. "Cats are possessive as fuck. You wanted me, now you're mine 'til I'm done with you."

Minseok’s hands smooth over Jongdae’s ears and down his neck, one after the other. "And when will that be?"

Jongdae nuzzles deeper into the warm muscles below him, swiping his tongue lazily over smooth skin. "Probably never," he decides through a wide yawn. 

Minseok’s warm chuckle seems to indicate he has no objections to that, which fills Jongdae with enough contentment that he can ignore the half-smothered ghostly cooing from the direction of his closet.

Evidently, this independent tomcat won't ever be truly solitary ever again, and Jongdae lets himself be (mostly) pleased about that.

ʎ\෴/λ


End file.
